ABOUT THE TRAGOPAN. 
355 
winter they are confined, by the conditions of their existence, to more 
circumscribed localities. The female seems less timid than the male. 
The flight of the latter is very singular ; when he has a long space to 
traverse, he glides in the air without beating his wings, but simply 
agitating his oar-feathers in a light and tremulous manner. It is at 
such a moment that he appears in all his splendour. 
The monaul's cry is a plaintive hiss ; it is to be heard in the 
wooded glades all day long, but more particularly in the evening, and 
in the morning before sunrise. His food is principally roots, leaves, 
jj^oung blades of grass, with every kind of berry, nut, and insect. 
THE HORNED PHEASANT 
But we must pass on to the homed pheasant, the tragopan, which 
is exclusively limited to the Himalayan range and the mountains of 
Southern China. He resembles the Argus slightly ; that is, the spots 
which cover his plumage are eye-shaped, and produce a very marked 
effect. He wears a garb of sober colouring, on the whole ; black and 
brown predominating, with sombre red scattered here and there, and 
