130 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



The mother bird moved not a muscle — she seemed scarcely to wink — while I 

 watched her that day, and on the following she remained equally quiet, although once 

 I walked within twenty feet. The succeeding day, at nine in the morning, she was not 

 to be seen, and I hastened to take photographs of the two large, thickly speckled eggs, 

 and retreat before she returned. In the afternoon she had returned, but on the fourth 

 day came tragedy swift and final. As I came along the slope I heard the familiar crash 

 and roar of a troop of langur monkeys. I approached, and the noise lessened until the 

 forest was still, but as I came over the ridge a long-tailed grey form leaped from the 

 undergrowth up a bare, half-fallen tree trunk, and ran along it on three legs, holding 

 something clutched in one hand. I suspected something was wrong and ran headlong 

 at the great monkey, who promptly dropped the object and fled from tree to tree, 

 swearing roundly at me the while. A glance at the nest showed it to be empty, and 

 several minutes' search beneath the dead tree revealed one of the eggs, with a great 

 gaping hole in one side, through which the yolk still dripped. The female was never 

 seen again, but the very same day another nest, identified by tell-tale feathers, was found 

 under the shelter of a small moss-covered boulder not more than two hundred feet away. 

 The second female was not observed either upon or near the nest. 



As enemies of the Impeyan, the langurs at once assumed a new interest in my 

 eyes. The troop fled overhead into the thicker parts of the forest, making an almost 

 incredible racket. Tree after tree shook and bent as in a terrific gale of wind, branches 

 crashed and splintered, cones, needles and oak leaves rained to the ground as the band 

 swung and leaped past. Rarely they dropped to the ground, galloped for a few steps 

 and swung up again, but even among the narrow, cone-shaped firs it was seldom that 

 there was a break in their aerial path. Their pale buff bodies and black faces formed 

 a strange colour note among the conifers, and their low chatter merged with the great 

 noise of their passage. 



Strange to say, this not unusual uproar in the deodar forests does not unduly startle 

 the other lesser wild creatures, but the small birds and mammals hate them with a well- 

 deserved hatred. They well know the four-handed folk, their limitations and their 

 dangers. I saw langurs mobbed by nutcrackers and other birds more than once, and 

 a squirrel never lost a chance to tell the marauders what he thought of them. Doubt- 

 less many a score of pheasants and birds of lesser size are robbed of their eggs by these 

 keen-eyed animals. But they do not have it all their own way. One day my shikari 

 led me to some splintered bones and tufts of hair, which revealed where one of these 

 monkeys had fallen prey to some leopard or other carnivore. Sometimes the peace of 

 the sweet-scented mountain forests and the songs of the birds seemed but hollow 

 mockeries as I thought of tragedy moving swiftly, first here, then there, claiming — first 

 or last — every creature, insect, bird or mammal. 



In connection with the two nests of Impeyans which I found in quite close 

 proximity, it is interesting to read that one observer has written, " in localities 

 where they are very numerous . . . several nests may be found within a circle 

 of a hundred yards, as if the females were, even at this season, more or less 

 gregarious." 



The two nests which I have recorded, and a third found later, were all alike 

 in that there was no nest in the usual sense of the word. The eggs were deposited 



