HIMALAYAN IMPEYAN PHEASANT 125 



hot, dark jungles I many times admired the alert carriage and watchfulness of the 

 pheasants dwelling there, but for no other bird did I ever feel the enthusiasm which 

 the bravery, unconscious though it was, of the Impeyan aroused ; apparently conscious 

 of danger, clad in the most advertising of tints, and yet taking his chances in the open. 



Lynx, leopards, foxes, wild dogs, beech martens, weasels, all doubtless look upon 

 the Impeyan, awake or asleep, as their lawful prey. The recently slain body of the 

 adult Impeyan of which I have written is the only tragedy of its kind within my 

 personal experience, but several Himalayan sportsmen have commented upon the fact 

 of finding, not uncommonly, a heap of scattered Impeyan feathers here and there on 

 the hillsides with no trace of body or bones. These feather-revealed tragedies have been 

 explained in an interesting way which certainly seems plausible for that period of the 

 year between March and October. "All the larger eagles pair in February and March 

 and begin building their nest very soon after, and from that time on till the young birds 

 are fully fledged and able to follow their parents, all the game is brought to the nest 

 daily, minus the feathers, which are plucked by the parent birds presumably where the 

 bird was caught. I had an opportunity of watching the actions of a pair of spotted 

 hawk-eagles only a short time ago, and finally sent up a man for the young one, which 

 had only just begun getting a few of its back feathers. In the nest was a whole dove, 

 with the exception of its feathers, a few, but very few feathers, of koklass and monaul, 

 but any number of bones of all sorts and sizes. The young bird leaves the nest in 

 August, but not to wander far from it, and does not accompany its parents till nearly 

 the middle of September, when it gets its first training and is initiated into the 

 mysteries of ' striking.' I have frequently seen the young birds getting a lesson. The 

 mother soars into the heavens with her offspring following close behind and with a 

 tender morsel in her talons. When sufficiently high to give the youngster a good 

 fly, she drops it and lets him stoop after it, keeping near enough herself to catch it 

 before it reaches the ground, in case the young one fails to get it. However, it is only 

 one or two of the largest eagles that dare resort to this style of amusement, as any of 

 the smaller ones attempting the experiment would soon have their breakfast snatched 

 from them. It is from October to March that the absence of bones is hard to account 

 for. Of course, during these months not many sportsmen visit the haunts of monaul 

 and snow cock to notice, and even then, in the majority of cases, the eagles are usually 

 followed by crows, who bother the life out of them as soon as they (the eagles) leave 

 their perch. The keen eyes of the lammergeyer too are ever on the watch for scraps. 

 Then again there are pine martens and foxes, neither of which would despise even the 

 bones of a pheasant." The enemies of eggs and young I shall discuss elsewhere. 



From Sikhim to Kashmir the nesting season of the Impeyan is in May and June. All 

 the birds have now returned from lower levels, and at these high altitudes the spring 

 of the year is at its full. The courtship takes place late in April or early in May, and, 

 as in all the pheasants, consists in a display of the cock before the female, of such 

 character that his brilliant hues and striking patterns are exhibited to the utmost 

 advantage. Twice at a distance I observed Impeyans thus displaying, but in both cases 

 my woodcraft was not equal to that of the birds, and before I could reach a position for 

 careful watching they had taken alarm and disappeared. On the second occasion I 

 consumed almost an hour in creeping a hundred yards, and was certain that neither by 



