THE GREY PEACOCK PHEASANT 59 



the southern border the Grey Peacock Pheasant is found close to sea-level, while Davison 

 has found it at six thousand feet, near the summit of Mooleyit, and I have shot it at 

 almost as high elevations in Northern Burma. In my own experience, and in that of 

 several writers, the birds favour bamboo growth on hillsides, at least in early morning 

 and late afternoon. At other times I have found them more often in denser tree forest. 



One writer gives a most forbidding picture of the haunts of this bird, saying that it 

 frequents only the most inaccessible spots, mountains five to seven thousand feet high, 

 the steep sides of which are covered with a dense, massive growth of trees, undergrowth, 

 bushes, bamboo and thorny rattan, all bound together by interlaced climbing plants, so 

 dense that one could not progress more than one hundred yards in an hour. Added to 

 this, outside of the trail the sides are so steep that one can scarcely hang on, and the 

 ground is very slippery. On the other side the underbrush is infested with all sorts of 

 beasts, each more dangerous than the other ! 



I can personally vouch for the truth of all these unpleasant phenomena, but I have 

 never encountered them simultaneously, and pursuit of the Peacock Pheasant offers, as a 

 rule, so much of interest that the difficulties are quickly forgotten. 



When a single pheasant or a pair of these birds has passed me in the jungle, I have 

 often returned to the same spot for several days, but have never observed any such 

 regularity of daily shifting to feeding-grounds and back as we find in pheasants of 

 more open, temperate haunts. The jungle floor offers food — both animal and 

 vegetable — on every hand, and a bird has only to make its way at will here and there 

 to find abundance, and when night comes it would seem as if any tangle of lianas would 

 be as acceptable a roosting-place as another. There is, however, evidence that the same 

 roosts are used for many nights in succession. 



It is usually considered as a wary and rare bird, but this impression is given by any 

 species when the observer is a sportsman intent on larger game, or an explorer passing 

 more or less rapidly through the country. When I found this pheasant in any locality, 

 I settled down and for a week at a time devoted myself to concentration on this species 

 alone. By choosing suitable places and working my way through the undergrowth 

 with as much as possible of the silence of the jungle folk themselves, I found that the 

 birds were not very uncommon. I have seen thirteen in a walk of four or five miles. 

 They appear to be very unsociable and are usually observed singly. Only once or twice 

 has more than a pair of individuals been in sight at a time. And when frightened they 

 make their escape silently, not with a loud outcry which might be a warning were others 

 of their kind near by. The single exception I have known to this was when I almost 

 stepped on a hen bird sitting on her two eggs, and the screech with which she half flew, 

 half fluttered off, alarmed me momentarily as much as it must have frightened her. 



This subject of comparative abundance or rarity is one which should be given 

 serious thought by any one who is making a list of birds of a given district, or, indeed, 

 who is writing about birds from any point of view. In regard to this Peacock Pheasant 

 we read of its being "common," "not very common," "wary and rare," all in the same 

 region, each term apparently expressing the individual opinion of the writers, but 

 conveying very vague and loose ideas to the reader. If the most abundant bird of 

 the district was taken as a criterion, and the other terms based on relative abundance 

 or rarity, readers could get much better ideas as to the local occurrence of birds. 



