THE KOKI-ASS.
confinement than the Jcwar or Moonal. It roosts in trees
generally, but at times on low bushes or on the ground.
' • I n the lower regions this bird should be sought for from
about the middle of the hill upwards ; oak forests, where the
ground is rocky and uneven, are the most likely places to find
it. Dogs arc requisite to ensure sport, and are much to be
preferred to beaters, as birds which, if flushed by the latter,
would go far out of all reach, will often fly into the trees close
above the dogs, and may be approached quite close, seeming to
pay more attention to the movements of these than to the presence
of the sportsman. In the interior they will be found with
the Moonal in all forests, but always keep in the wood, and do
not, like it, resort to the borders ; they are worth shooting, if but for
the table, as the flesh is perhaps the best of the Hill Pheasants."
Captain Baldwin has some pertinent remarks on this species,
though he, of course, has only shot them in summer, viz., in the
breeding season. He says :—" I have shot the Koklass out of the
same cover as the Moonal, at an elevation of 13,000 feet. It is
especially fond of cypress and oak forests, and is generally found
singly or in pairs. I have never seen more than four fullgrown
birds together at a time.
" A sportsman often flushes the Koklass when on the steep
grassy slopes looking for Gooral, especially if there are oak trees
in the vicinity. I have been startled by the bird, which, when
rising, makes a loud croaking noise. The Koklass is a particularly
swift flyer; more so, I am inclined to think, than any
other of the Himalayan Pheasants ; it darts down the side of the
mountains with astonishing rapidity, and requires, when well on
the wing, an experienced shot to cut it over.
" The sportsman, on awakening in the early morning, when
encamped on the uplands 1o hunt Thar, will hear the harsh 'kokkokpokmss'
cry of this bird on all sides, and Pucrasia macrolopha
when heralding the dawn of day in this manner is generally
sitting on one of the lower boughs of a cypress tree.
" It is in the habit of hunting for food and scratching about
in search of insects among patches of rhododendron, and I have
observed it so occupied in close company with the Moonal. 1
do not think that this bird approaches villages and habitations
like the Kalij, nor have I ever shot it out of standing corn.
They will crow three or four together, on being startled by a
distant gun shot, a stone rolling down, or a clap of thunder.
" Two brace is the most that I have ever shot in a day, though,
generalh' speaking, after driving a valley with beaters, a few
brace of Koklass are included among the slain."
THE KOKLASS breeds throughout the Himalayas in all wellwooded
localities within the limits above indicated. The bird
may be shot at any elevation from 3.000 to 14,000 feet, but it
only nests, according to my experience, from 6,000 to 9,000
feet. The breeding time lasts from the middle of April until
the middle of June, according to locality and season, but the
majority lay, in normal years, during the first-half of May.
This species is, I think, unquestionably monogamous, and the
birds, I suspect, commonly pair for life.
Little or no nest is made ; a circular depression is scratched
in the forest, in a thick shelter of undergrowth or under some
huge root or overhanging rock, and in this, unlined, or but
sparsely lined with leaves, moss, or dry grass, or all three, the
eggs, from five to nine in number, are laid.
Mr. Wilson remarked, many years ago, that " the female
lays seven eggs, nearly resembling those of the Moonal in
colour. They are hatched about the middle or end of May. She
makes her nest under the shelter of an overhanging tuft of
grass, or in a corner at the foot of a tree, and sometimes in the
hollow of a decayed trunk."
Now writing to me from Garhwal, he says :—
" The Koklass breeds at elevations of from 5,000 to 10,000 or
11,000 feet, in coppices and forests with some underwood. The
nest is a hole scraped in the ground, and always sheltered
under a tuft of grass, or thick bush, or overhanging stone, and
it is sometimes made in the hollow at the foot of a big tree or
old trunk. As a rule, the number of eggs seems to be nine.
It begins to lay early in May, but some not till the end of the
month. Both birds are generally found with the young brood.
The male chicks of this and the Kalij get their proper plumage
the first year. By the middle of September they are pretty
well grown."
The eggs are oval, more or less pointed towards the small
end, and vary a good deal in size and shape, as in the case of the
Pea-Fowl, some being much broader, and others more elongated
ovals. None that I have seen have been at all of the ovoidoconoidal
shape of the Francolins, and the Common Pheasant
(P. colchicus). The shape is more that of the true Partridge,
Galloperdix and Galloplmsis. The ground colour is a rich pale
buff, and the eggs are, some densely and thickly speckled and
spotted, and others boldly but thinly blotched and splashed
with deep brownish red, which is dullest in the speckled, and
brightest and deepest in the blotched, varieties.
The eggs of these two types vary more in appearance than
might perhaps be supposed from the above description. One
egg will have the whole ground as thickly speckled over as
possible with minute dots, not one of them much bigger than a
pin's point, and so closely set that a pin's head could nowhere
be placed between them ; while another egg will have at most
a dozen bold blotches, and three or four times that number of
good-sized spots, leaving comparatively large spaces of ground
colour utterly unspotted. It is impossible to conceive a richer