THE MOONAL. 131 



During the winter the natives trap and snare them through- 

 out the Himalayas, and since skins of males have become worth 

 Rs. 5 or 6 a piece, even to the villager who captures the bird, 

 this business has received a great stimulus. The most common 

 plan is to set nooses of sinew, gut, or the fibres of one of the hill 

 nettles, about the localities they affect, in between a couple of 

 rocks or bushes, or in openings purposely left in some small 

 artificial barrier ; but in some places they catch them with 

 falling blocks of wood, just as capercailzie are trapped in 

 Norway and Sweden. 



Once or twice late in April I have come upon males nautch- 

 ing, with wings drooped, tail cocked and outspread, and breast 

 almost touching the ground, shivering and quivering spasmodi- 

 cally, and moving backwards and forwards with tiny steps like 

 Turkey-cocks, but the birds were always off before I could 

 really study the peculiarities of their nuptial dance. 



The MOONAL breeds throughout the forest-clad ranges of the 

 Himalayas, at any rate from Kashmir to Bhutan, at elevations 

 of from 7,000 or 8,000 to fully 12,000 feet. 



The breeding season is in May and June. They have only 

 one brood, and the female alone incubates the eggs and rears 

 the young. 



Usually the eggs are laid in a bare depression in the 

 ground, scratched by the female, under the shelter of some 

 overhanging rock, the massive root of some large tree, or some 

 thick tuft of fern, but at times the hollow is more or less 

 lined with dry grass, dead leaves, or a little moss. 



In localities where they are very numerous, e.g., on the 

 " C/ior" not far from Simla, several nests may be found within a 

 circle of a hundred yards, as if the females were, even at this 

 season (as they are at all others), more or less gregarious. 



Six is the largest number of eggs that I have known to be found 

 in any one nest, and four or five is certainly the usual number ; 

 but native sportsmen talk of finding occasionally as many as a 

 dozen. 



Long ago my old friend " Mountaineer" remarked : " The 

 female makes her nest under a small overhanging bush or tuft of 

 grass, and lays five eggs of a dull white, speckled with reddish 

 brown. The chicks are hatched about the end of May." 



He now writes to me from Garhwal : — 



11 The Moonal breeds at elevations from 8,000 to 12,000 feet 

 in all sorts of forest. Some begin to lay early in May, others 

 not till the end of the month. The nest is placed in much the 

 same situations as that of the Koklass, that is to say, always 

 under some slight shelter, an overhanging bush or tuft of grass, 

 or rock or stone, or in the hollow at the foot of a tree, or under 

 an old trunk. It is merely a hole scraped in the ground, but 

 bits of grass, leaves, &c, which are round it, are often dropped 



