HIMALAYAN IMPEYAN PHEASANT 129 



the distant snows for centuries, held safe her secret — a half-dozen caricatures of birds — 

 atoms of fluffy down — who waited so patiently in the darkness for the coming food, the 

 never-failing beakfuls of insects which would enable them soon to explore the great 

 forests for themselves. Many a withering brush of needles was freed from its insect 

 blight by these tiny foragers, and the thought came, if they and all their feathered 

 kindred should die or disappear, how soon would the ancient spruce and all its fellows 

 stand stark and bare — awaiting death ; succumbing surely to the insect hordes, which 

 nothing but the tireless energy of the bird world keeps in abeyance ! 



Nutcrackers called and hammered loudly ; black and yellow grosbeaks shrieked 

 their Che-che-ult ! and from a distant valley came the five-syllabled crow of a koklass 

 pheasant. But my eyes continued to follow the little tit as she made trip after trip to 

 the home in the spruce. Once she gleaned from the low shrubs, and was flitting about 

 near the ground when I heard her utter a sudden scolding note and pause in her search. 

 She concentrated her attention on a tangle of ivy, and had discovered, as I supposed, a 

 snake or other animal, which the little bird considered as worthy of her contempt. She 

 gave it but a second glance, however, and returned quietly to her caterpillar hunt. I 

 carefully focused my glasses on the spot, and almost at the first scrutiny made out the 

 head of some large bird through the interstices of the leaves. 



The bright eye seemed to be fixed upon me, so I made no sudden movement, rising 

 quietly and walking slowly away, but down the slope, in order to get a better view. 

 Finding this impossible, I climbed some distance up a half-dead spruce, and had an 

 almost clear view of a female Impeyan sitting close to the base of a rotten stub, half 

 buried in a mass of Himalayan ivy and maidenhair fern. Her mottled plumage 

 merged insensibly into the dry leaves ; her pale-blue eye-space might pass for some 

 lowly blossom. It was indeed a red-letter day ! How I sat and looked, and looked 

 again ! The whole landscape seemed changed ; all was a mere setting for this 

 gem ; mere accessories to complete the picture. The forest itself became the place 

 where the Impeyan nested. The little tit flew to and fro unheeded, unwatched. My 

 interest became concentrated on the floor of the forest — where she sat, and where 

 she must, somehow, mysteriously leave her treasure and search — how hungrily, and yet 

 begrudgingly — for food. 



But even aside from this, to me, wonderful discovery, the forest carpet was a thing 

 of marvellous beauty and great interest. In more open parts, where oaks prevailed, 

 grew low jungles of roses and gracefully sweeping, pink-flowered raspberries ; or where 

 the deep shade of the deodars held sway were the flowers of the shadows, growing 

 singly or in friendly groups of several — lilies-of-the-valley, Solomon's seal, or so they 

 appeared to American eyes. Here too, in the very presence of the wonderful wilderness 

 home, were banks of delicate maidenhair fern, all in deep shadow, a filmy tracery 

 bending to breaths of air which I could not sense. And wherever the ferns failed, crept 

 the ivy, winding its dull-green trail over fallen trunks, or seeking to hide every stump 

 or half-dead tree. 



In such a fairyland I found my first home of the Impeyan ; under such conditions 

 the little lives begin their growth. It was a new thought to imagine the wonderful 

 iridescent creatures of the high rocky meadows as starting life here amid the dim light 

 beneath the ferns. 



