ïlîl KISKILASI
Pucrasia macrolopha, Lesson.
Vernacular Names- f P h o k rass, BIwte Pargattas of Kumattn and Garkbidl;
Koklass, Kokla, Almora lo Simla ; Koak, (Pahari Hindi,) A'ullu, Manii ; Plas,
Kashmir.]
OKLASS, which it is now usual to treat as belonging
to three distinct species, extend in the Himalayas
from the central northern, and north-western portions
of Nepal to Kafiristan.
Of these three supposed species I shall say more
when dealing with P. nipalensis. At present we are
only concerned with typical Pucrasia macrolopha,
which may be said to extend from the centre of Kumaun, or at
any rate the eastern portions of British Garhwal, as far as
the westernmost portions of Kashmir, though westwards of
Simla it is comparatively scarce.
O F ALL OUR Hill Pheasants, the Koklass is the best eating, and
affords the best sport. Other people's experience appears to be
different, as will be seen from passages that I shall quote further
on, but I have always found them in the latter part of the
autumn in large coveys, and not unftcquently several coveys
on one hill side. I have found them lay well, and rise and go
off superbly, and I would rather have a-good day after Koklass
in the middle of November, in some little-wooded saucerlike
valley or depression at 7,000 or 8,000 feet in the Himalayas,
where too or three coveys have been marked by one's shikaris,
than after any other bird in any other place.
The spot for Koklass is either some depression, such as I have
mentioned, or some place in a gorge where a horizontal plateau
is thrown out inside the gorge.
There is an oval cup-shaped valley near the top of Nagtiber
behind Mussooree, which used, in old days, to be a sure find for
Koklass in October and November. In and about this, I, one
November morning, put up no less than three coveys, aggregating,
I suppose, over twenty birds ; the young ones looking
quite as large, though not weighing quite so much as the old
ones. I killed five within a circle of a hundred yards, and I
then, during the rest of the day, got seven more about the slopes
of that hill, besides two Moonal, a Cheer, a Woodcock, several