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 hut 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 precipitous
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 arc put in at the very
top, a few of the men climbing with them on such ledges as are
accessible ; the stones rattle dowrn 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
tin' slip was serious, or a separate gibe, if it was trivial, for the
benefit of the slipper; all this comes down to you threo or
four hundred feet below, a confused babel; you scream out
" silence," then a shaip 3'clp, 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 muzzleloading
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
straight out, and you arrest his career (if you are sharp enough)
then and there.
Then comes the work below ; the dogs are called close to heel,
and following the shouted directions of the markers, you move
about here and there, now finding a dead bird, now having a
wounded one brought you by a dog, ami now getting nearly
knocked down by one whose tail absolutely brushes your face
as it rises under your feet from the centre of a small patch of
cover, which, on the persistent outcries of the markers, you
have been vainly hunting through, backwards and forwards, for
the ten previous minutes.
But you do not account for all, unless you are a better shot
than I over yet saw, though in these days of breech-loaders far
fewer ought to escape—some wounded birds, and many of the
unwounded will have given leg bail, and the distances they will
then go is surprising. I have, quite by accident, recovered by
a dog pouncing on it a Cheer, with pinion broken, the blood
still fresh 011 it, fully three miles down a valley at the upper part
of which two or three hours previously I had had a beat.
The sport is very exhilarating, but you are generally lower
down than in Koklass shooting ; you are more closed in, the air
is not so fresh and bright, there are no superb wide-reaching
views, changing as you move ; a glimpse of the snows is rarely
to be caught ; you have no magnificent forest about you, and
when brought to bag, your bird is very poor eating compared
with Koklass or Woodcock.
The force with which Cheer descend is almost incredible.
Other Pheasants in descending keep the wings a little open ;
these birds pass one at such a fearful pace that it is impossible
to be certain, but it always appeared to mc that Cheer quite
closed their wings, and I attribute their power to do this to
their enormous tails sufficing to guide them. W;hen within
a hundred feet, I speak by guess, of the level at which
they intend to light, suddenly out go the wings, the tail is
spread to its fullest expanse, the bird looks double the size
it did a second before, and sweeps off in graceful curves right
or left, shortly dropping suddenly, almost as if shot, into some
patch of low cover. If no shots have been fired, you may
walk straight down, and ten to one find him exactly where you
marked him.
At times you get them on the hill sides, where the trees
are thin, but there is no great sport to be got there ; the whole
covey is scattered over an endless distance, you must make
a line, the birds will get up in front of any one but the gunner,
and run down hill in a most provoking manner ; if you get
two brace in such a situation after five or six hours' fagging you
may be well pleased, unless the covey happens to have an
antipathy to dogs, as they occasionally seem to have in outof
the-way places. Then almost every bird that is found by