THE ARGUS PHEASANT. 101 



the bar, while the other end is fastened to a peg lightly driven 

 into the ground immediately beneath the block. The bird com- 

 mencing, as usual, to clear away these obstructions, soon 

 manages to pull up the peg, and thus releases the heavy block 

 of wood, which falls and crushes it. 



" The males are not at all quarrelsome, and apparently never 

 interfere with each other, though they will answer each other's 

 calls. The call of the male sounds like " how-how," repeated 

 ten or a dozen times, and is uttered at short intervals when the 

 bird is in its clearing, one commencing and others in the 

 neighbourhood answering. The report of a gun will set every 

 male within hearing calling, and on the least alarm or excite- 

 ment, such as a troop of monkeys passing overhead, they call. 



" The call of the female is quite distinct, sounding like how- 

 owoo, how-owoo, the last syllable much prolonged, repeated ten 

 or a dozen times, but getting more and more rapid until it ends 

 in a series of owoo's run together. Both the call of male and 

 female can be heard to an immense distance, that of the former 

 especially, which can be heard at the distance of a mile or more. 

 Both sexes have also a note of alarm, a short, sharp, hoarse bark. 



" The female, like the male, lives quite solitarily, but she has 

 no cleared space, and wanders about the forest apparently 

 without any fixed residence. The birds never live in pairs, the 

 female only visiting the male in his parlour for a short time. 



" The food consists chiefly of fallen fruit, which they swallow 

 whole, especially one about the size and colour of a prune, which 

 is very abundant in the forests of the south, but they also eat 

 ants, slugs, and insects of various kinds. These birds all come 

 down to the water to drink about 10 or n A.M., after they have 

 fed and before they, or at any rate the males, return to their 

 parlours. They were very common about Malewoon and 

 Bankasoon, and Mr. Osborne, the superintendent of the mines, 

 preserved 32 males during a comparatively short period." 



" I WAS unable," says Davison, " to find the nest, but, from what 

 I could learn, the female builds a rude nest on the ground in 

 some dense cane brake, laying seven or eight e^gs, white or 

 creamy, minutely speckled with brown like a Turkey's, and 

 hatching and rearing her brood without any assistance or inter- 

 ference from the male. They are said to have no regular breed- 

 ing season, the females laying at all times except during the 

 depth of the rains. I secured two nestlings about a week old 

 on the 28th of February. 



The following are the dimensions and colours of the soft 

 parts recorded in the flesh : — 



Males. — Length 70*0 to 73*0 ; expanse, to end of longest 

 primaries, 49-5 to 52*0 ; tail from vent, 49*5 to 52*0; wing to 



