THE HIMALAYAN FORESTS. 
353 
confines himself exclusively to the mountain-heights of Nepaul and the 
Himalayas, rejoicing in the free pure air which he breathes at an 
elevation of six thousand to ten thousand feet above the sea. He 
never descends into the plains. 
The following description is adapted from Mountain, and as the 
monaul is altogether an unfamiliar bird, will, we hope, prove both 
novel and interesting to our readers : — 
When Europeans first penetrated into the mountains in the neigh- 
bourhood of Mussuri, he was very common there, and even now he is 
sometimes descried. In the summer-time he is rarely seen, the lianas 
and the luxuriant vegetation preventing the eye from plunging into 
the forest-shades ; but at morn and eve he may still be seen on the 
very threshold of the region of perpetual snow. When the cold season 
sets in, and the lianas fade, and the plants which cover the ground 
wither up, the forest appears to be filled with him and his congeners. 
They congregate together in large companies, and in many places the 
sportsman, in a single day, may " start " upwards of a hundred. But 
in summer nearly all the males and many of the females mount 
towards the lofty peaks and pinnacles. When Autumn's decaying 
finger touches the earth's life, old birds and young assemble wherever 
the gi'ound is covered with a harvest of dead leaves, seeking for 
insects and larvae, and descending nearer the lowlands as winter 
advances. When the declivities are heavy with snow, they make 
their way to the southern slopes of the mountains, and to those points 
where the snow first melts, or to the hills where it does not lie for any 
length of time. 
The females and the young frequently remain in the neighbour- 
hood of the hill-villages, and may be seen in great numbers in the 
surrounding fields. But, on the other hand, the old male birds cling to 
their forest-haunts, however severe may be the winter-cold, however 
dense the winter-snow. On the first smile of spring awakening in the 
heavens, they all reascend the mountains. 
Then the bands which in autumn and winter were gathered 
together in a limited area of the forest, spread over a surface of such 
extent that each bird seems isolated. The traveller may proceed a 
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