242 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
whence it is impossible to flush him. Only when beating the narrow, well-defined belts 
of tree jungle that run down the ravines on the hillsides in the Nilgiris, and which we 
there call s/olas, is anything like real sport to be got out of them. Then, indeed, the gun 
at the tail end of the skola may get three or four good shots in succession, as they rise at 
the end of the cover and fly off with a strong, well-sustained flight to the next nearest 
patch. Even thus, working hard and beating sola after shola, a man will be lucky to 
bag five or six brace in a day. 
“The reason is, that all the well-defined so/as which can be thoroughly beaten are 
in the higher parts of the hills, where the birds are comparatively rare, while when you 
get lower down, where the birds are plentiful, the jungles are so large that they cannot 
be effectively worked. If you merely want to £7// the birds, you might get perhaps ten 
or a dozen in a short time poking along some of the roads, but they afford no sport 
thus, only a series of pot shots. 
“T remember once watching an old cock that my dogs had driven up into a tree. 
For some time I peered round and round (the tree was a large and densely-foliaged one) 
without being able to discover his whereabouts, he all the while sitting silent and 
motionless. At last my eyes fell upon him, that instant he hopped silently on to 
another bough and from that to another, and so on with incredible rapidity, till, 
reaching the opposite side of the tree, he flew out silently, of course never giving me a 
chance at a shot.” 
A sportsman near Mt. Abu says that the cordon system of driving “is usually 
adopted in shooting them here. The guns are placed behind screens made previously 
by the ‘shik4aris,’ at the ends of patches of jungle the birds are known to affect, and the 
beaters are sent round to drive the birds up to them, forming a semi-circular line to 
prevent the birds escaping at the sides. It is very poor sport, you seldom or never get 
a flying shot, and when you do, the jungle is so thick that it is about ten to one you 
miss. The birds, especially the old cocks, are remarkably wary, and the moment they 
hear the beaters they begin to run, stopping about every fifty yards to listen. 
‘They have a very quick eye, and alter their course immediately if they see or hear 
the slightest thing in front. The only way, therefore, when you know a bird is coming, 
is to raise your gun silently to your shoulder, turn very quietly in the direction from 
which it is coming, and remain perfectly motionless, and as soon as ever the bird gets 
within shot, fire. 
“T have shot them with dogs, but that is equally poor sport. As soon as the 
Junglefowl sees the dog, he flies up into a tree and squats upon a bough until you 
dislodge him from his supposed place of security with a charge of shot.” 
Dr. G. H. Krumbiegel, superintendent of the Mysore Museum, writes me that in 
Mysore the Grey Junglefowl is protected from March 1 to September 1, but that 
natives shoot them throughout the year. The method usually adopted is to sit in 
ambush over a water-hole, or feed the birds regularly at a certain spot, and when they 
are well together feeding, to “ brown” the lot. A shikari will sometimes call up a cock 
by imitating the hen. The sound is a very soft note, and one would scarcely think the 
cock would hear it thirty or forty yards away, but he rushes along impetuously within 
half a minute. The Kurbars track Junglefowl, but the people who destroy them to the 
greatest extent are the Pardees, a wandering tribe in Mysore, whose only occupation is 
