104 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
A few yards ahead I heard now and then a muffled scratching of leaves. Fortune 
favoured me, and after many minutes of most painstaking stalking, I reached a good 
point of observation. Fora long time I could make out nothing but a confused dark 
mass tumbling about—first falling over one side, then the other. My low-power glasses 
at last showed me it was two Fireback hens waging a battle as fiercely as any 
game-cocks, 
Breathlessness was the only cause of stopping, and even when both seemed com- 
pletely exhausted, they clung together, and from time to time gave wholly ineffectual 
pecks at one another. Their wings dragged, their feathers were ruffled, and they were 
altogether most disreputable-looking females. Finally, thinking they were so spent that 
I could catch them with my hands, I walked toward them. But though their combative 
strength was spent, they had reserve enough to run quickly off when they saw me 
coming. 
The comparative similarity in colour of the sexes of this species, and the presence 
of spurs in both, would indicate that courtship was a more or less reciprocal affair, and 
the fight of the hen birds which I witnessed would also support this conclusion. On 
the other hand, there are good reasons for supposing that this species is more or less 
polygamous, and if such is the case, any such theory would fail to explain the facts. 
Further observation showed that these birds were more numerous along the smaller 
creeks which traversed the low country, and that they haunted the water-holes of the 
buffaloes in early morning. They have apparently no regular place of fighting, but pitch 
into one another whenever and wherever the spirit moves them. 
Birds which become badly injured in these encounters or are otherwise disabled or 
weakly have short shrift. Leeches and ticks do their work even before the keen noses of 
carnivores find them out. One recently dead bird with a spur-thrust through its breast 
I found with a circle of gorged leeches lying about, and the ants were assembling in 
hundreds, eager to play their part in the drama of dissolution. 
Even continued trapping will not drive these birds away, and a pot-hunter or 
trapper could destroy every member of a flock. 
The note of suspicion or half-alarm of the Malayan Fireback is a sharp, explosive 
kak! followed by the throaty, frog-like gulp, characteristic of all the Gexuaeus, uttered 
once or twice. Then the £a#! again, and the subdued bubbling or gurgling sounds. 
The note of wild despair when attacked by some animal, or being removed from a trap 
by a native, is, in the old bird, a hoarse, long-drawn cry ; in the young a shrill whistling. 
The sound of warning or challenge when two cocks threaten one another is a deep, 
hoarse drawl, almost a snarl, which one would attribute rather to a carnivore than to 
a small pheasant. 
The fowl-like appearance which the roof-like, compressed tail gives to this Fireback 
is well indicated by the Malayan name. The natives never call it Awang (pheasant), 
but always durong (bird) or ayam (fowl). 
Although this pheasant is not uncommon in some places, and, as we have seen, even 
frequents the vicinity of isolated huts or native hamlets, yet its nest has never been 
found, nor, as far as I know, have we any record of its eggs or young. I was unable to 
learn anything authentic concerning its nidification, although the natives were ever 
ready to furnish me with any information (doubtless made to order) which they thought 
