I/O THE CHEER. 



probably higher. Of course they are birds of the outer or 

 wooded Hills, and once you cross a high snowy ridge, that 

 effectually arrests the clouds of the monsoon, into dry, more or 

 less treeless regions, like Lahoul, Spiti and Ladakh, you lose 

 the Cheer and all the Pheasants but the Snow Cocks. They are 

 all more or less birds of the forest, and all belong to the zone 

 of abundant rainfall. 



The best places in which to find Cheer are the Dangs or pre- 

 cipitous places, so common in many parts of the interior ; not 

 vast bare cliffs, but a whole congeries of little cliffs one above 

 the other, each perhaps from 15 to 30 feet high, broken up by 

 ledges, on which a man could barely walk, but thickly set with 

 grass and bushes, and out of which grow up stunted trees, and 

 from which hang down curious skeins of grey roots and mighty 

 garlands of creepers. 



If the hill above be thinly wooded, and on some plateau 

 below there are a good number of Millet and Princes'-feather 

 fields, you are, in a Cheer district, next to certain in the autumn 

 to find a covey on the upper ledges of such a spot about ten 

 o'clock in the morning. 



Then what a morning's sport you may have. You get on some 

 knoll or spur commanding the lower portions of such a series 

 of clifflets, where you will be clear of the stones that the dogs 

 and men inevitably dislodge. The dogs are put in at the very 

 top, a few of the men climbing with them on such ledges as are 

 accessible ; the stones rattle down fast, a pahari slips, shouts, 

 and saves himself by clinging to a branch ; all the dogs bark, 

 every man looking on shouts out a different piece of advice if 

 the slip was serious, or a separate gibe, if it was trivial, for the 

 benefit of the slipper ; all this comes down to you three or 

 four hundred feet below, a confused babel ; you scream out 

 " silence," then a sharp yelp, a volley of screeching chuckles, 

 you see a dark object shoot out from the face of the upper 

 cliffs, a moment, and it suddenly contracts in size, and the 

 next hurtles by you, like a falling thunderbolt, and if you do 

 not miss it, it is quite certain that it is not the first time you 

 have shot Cheer. 



But whether hit or missed, there is no time to enquire now ; 

 good men are below to mark every bird that comes down, dead 

 or alive, or half-and-half. 



Another and another of these animated projectiles pass you 

 in their downward rush, some out of shot, some so close that it 

 is impossible to fire, and very often three, four, five in such 

 rapid succession that even with two doubles, in the old muzzle- 

 loading times, it was impossible to fire quick enough. 



Twelve or more perhaps have been counted, the dogs and 

 men have worked down to the level at which you stand, when 

 you catch a glimpse, scuttling round the base of the knoll, of the 

 old cock, going at railroad pace with head down and tail 



