86 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
thrushes had passed was being quartered by eleven splendid pheasants. With 
balanced glasses I could see every feather. Four were adult cocks, four more were 
hens, while the other three were nearly grown young males. Without doubt four of 
them comprised a still united family of the present year, while five others seemed to 
represent another. To my surprise I could easily distinguish between three of the 
male birds. A solitary cock was the lightest of all, one of the young males appeared 
as dark as a black-breasted kaleege, while its brother was lightly vermiculated. I 
have described these in detail elsewhere. I watched the dainty birds, stepping high, 
like thoroughbreds, snatching an insect or leaping at some morsel on a leaf overhead, 
or picking up an acorn, ever alert and watchful. I remained as still as the tree- 
trunk at my back, and the birds descended half-way down the slope toward me. 
Then two Kachin women, with silver cylinders and tassels in their ears, and 
great baskets on their backs, came along, chattering loudly. They halted when they 
saw me, and despite all my motions stood stupidly gaping at me for several minutes 
before they plodded on their way. The pheasants had, of course, retreated to cover, 
and when, twenty minutes later, they returned they were spread out more irregularly. 
I secured the light-coloured old male, which I had seen once before, while the others 
passed me on either hand, together with a jungle-cock, which in bearing and gait 
was not to be compared with the far more elegant and graceful pheasants. Except 
for a short, sharp alarm note and five minutes of silence, the rest of the flock paid 
no attention to the roar of the gun. As I had opportunity to notice on many other 
occasions, if one shoots from a thicket and makes no movement after firing, the 
birds seem to have no sense of direction of the danger, and are but little affected 
by the sight of their dead companion. When headed down toward water I have 
never known a flock to be turned back by shots fired in this way, and have secured 
as many as four from the same ambush. 
As I shall describe in detail, even the two birds of the year which I later 
secured, although appearing exactly alike at a distance of forty feet, turned out to 
differ sufficiently to fit them to two of the so-called species of the closet taxonomists. 
The following day the same route was followed by both laughing thrushes and 
pheasants, and on each of the succeeding six days, when my observations ceased. 
In no fewer than eight other flocks, or more properly families, of pheasants in the 
hills farther to the east I found the same interesting relation between the two 
different groups of birds. 
Early in the morning the birds worked uphill toward the higher, warmer ridges 
rather irregularly and at no special time, early or as late as nine o'clock, as the 
fancy or abundance of food influenced them. At this time they kept together in 
small family parties, uniting with others only when starting down for the evening 
drink. Mid-day was spent in dense bamboo thickets or tangles of thorn palms, 
where observation of them was almost impossible. I once watched three birds 
apparently picking ticks from one another's heads, and even from under the uplifted 
wings, at full noon, in the dense shade of some fallen vines. Toward two in the 
afternoon of a partly cloudy day, or about three if the sun shone warmly and 
uninterfuptedly, the pheasants began calling to one another in, undertones—sweet 
notes which much resemble the voice of our own bluebird, without, however, the 
