WHITE-CRESTED KALEEGE 15 
sixteen birds, all busily feeding. The turf was dying from the attacks of innumer- 
able grubs, and it was apparently these which attracted the birds. Of the sixteen 
seen at once, three were full-grown males, all the rest apparently birds of the year, 
with many scattered brown juvenile feathers remaining in their plumage. These 
had not as yet paired off, the breeding season not having begun at this high altitude. 
A few hundred yards away a single adult pair of pheasants were feeding by 
themselves for three out of the four days. 
When feeding as these were doing, or when, passing slowly through forest, the 
pheasants are suddenly disturbed by catching sight of a man, they usually run 
swiftly off, and seldom fly unless come upon suddenly or rushed by dogs, and even 
in the latter case in dense undergrowth they often choose to lie close and risk 
discovery until the danger becomes acute. White-crests are never as shy as 
Tragopans or Impeyans, and where they are not constantly annoyed or shot at by 
natives or sportsmen, they are as tame as the most amateur hunter Sahib could 
desire. When walking up a ravine or up the slope of a hill, if pheasants are flushed 
by dogs somewhat above, they will often fly into the trees just over the sportsman’s 
head, and be so occupied with watching the dogs that several may be shot one after 
the other. “When flushed from any place where they have sheltered, whether on 
the ground or aloft, they fly off to some distant cover, and alight on the ground in 
preference to the trees.” In the case of the sixteen birds which I have mentioned 
as being observed feeding together, at my first shot all flew uphill some forty or 
fifty yards. This is quite an unusual habit, and it is seldom that they will thus put 
forth the necessary exertion of actually beating upward. When suddenly alarmed 
they usually fly down the slope, or as often on a level along the hillside. The 
kaleege flaps rather heavily, and with rapid beats at the beginning of the flight, 
but soon acquires terrific speed—greater, several sportsmen have estimated, than the 
burst of a rocketing English pheasant. Referring again to the sixteen pheasants, 
five minutes later, when flushed by my native boy, all flew downhill and alighted 
in trees some distance below me. 
When surprised at a distance of twenty or thirty feet in dense underbrush, they 
never attempt to fly, but invariably run quickly away, with neck outstretched and 
tail lowered. Wholly undisturbed, and walking along slowly, not feeding, the White- 
crested Kaleege cock has a splendid carriage, head, crest and tail raised, lifting the 
feet high and daintily, and occasionally uttering a murmuring sound. 
The variety in the many written descriptions of the notes of this pheasant is 
probably as much due to the fact that they really have an extremely varied voca- 
bulary, as well as to the lack of attention which the average sportsman gives to vocal 
or other manifestations of a game-bird when it gets up before his gun. 
When flushed by a man and actuated by only a comparatively moderate degree 
of terror, I have always known the birds to utter a rather low whistled clucking, 
very unlike the noisy koklass, which scream or squawk on any provocation. When 
flushed by a dog and thoroughly alarmed they begin to cluck the instant they are 
a-wing, and gradually gain in rapidity and loudness of utterance, the notes being 
sibilant—se ! se! se! se-se-se-se-se-se—Si1p! Sip! Sip! Sire! Srp! One writer says, 
~ “Their call is a loud whistling chuckle or chirrup; it may occasionally be heard from 
