THE GREAT bulk of the birds will be met with in autumn
and winter low down, near fields and water, or halting places on
frequented roads. But during the summer they are occasionally
to be found up to nine or ten thousand feet. They are
not birds that, as a rule, afford much sport; you may see a
dozen together feeding in the early morning on one of the
" pcrows" or encamping grounds in the Siwaliks of the Dhun,
and you may bag a couple ; but even with good dogs to help
you, they run so fast and fly so far that long and weary will
be your hunt before you bag a second couple out of that
same dozen after you have once fired. In fact, in such places,
unless one has been marked into some neighbouring tree, when
you will generally get a shot, it is best to go on sharp, as a
quarter of a mile further on, on frequented roads like this,
you will meet with others along the track, to which the horse
dung and droppings of other beasts, containing undigested
grain, attracts them. I have in old days shot four or five
brace in an hour in the early morning on the road and "perows"
when encamped in the Mohan or Lai Darwaza Pass, through
which runs the main road to Dehra and Mussoorcc.
Generally in the Hills you may pick up three or four birds
in a day, by beating all likely looking patches of cover near
fields, but it is rare with this species to make a good bag.
There arc, however, places where you may come across the
Kalij almost as thick as Pheasants in a Norfolk cover. Such
places there used to be close to Blum Til and Naukuchia
Tal, small lakes not far from Naini Til, but at a much lower
level, and at the former of these I once, early in November,
killed eleven and a half brace in less than three hours.
In the Hills, as Mr. Voting writes, " a bed of the small Hill
bamboo, called Ncrgal or Ringal, with a stream running
through it, more particularly if in the vicinity of cultivated
hinds, is an almost certain find for Kolsa."
Wilson says : " This well-known Kalij is most abundant in
the lower regions ; it is common in the Dhun at the foot of
the hills, in all the lower valleys, and everywhere to an elevation
of about 8,000 feet: from this it becomes more rare,
though a few arc found still higher,
" It appears to be more unsuspicious of man than the rest
of our Pheasants ; it comes much nearer his habitations, and,
from being so often found near the villages and roadsides, is
considered by all as the most common, though, in their respective
regions, the Moonal (Lophophorus impeyanus) is more
numerous.
" In the lower regions it is found in every description of
forest, from the foot to tho summit of the hills ; but it is mcst
partial to low coppice and jungle, and wooded ravines or
hollows. In the interior it frequents the scattered jungle at
the borders of the dense forests, thickets near old deserted
patches of cultivation, old cowsheds and the like, coppices
near villages and roads, and, in fact, forests and jungle of
every kind, except the distant and remoter woods, in which
it is seldom found. The presence of man, or some trace that
he has once been a dweller in the spot, seems, as it were,
necessary to its existence.
" The Kalij is not very gregarious. Three or four are
often found together, and ten or a dozen may sometimes be
put out of one small coppice; but they seem in a great
measure independent of each other, and much like our English
Pheasants. When disturbed, if feeding or on the move,
they generally run, and do not often get up, unless surprised
suddenly and closely or forced by dogs, and lie rather close
in thick cover.
" They are never very shy, and, where not unceasingly
annoyed by sportsmen or shikaris, are as tame as any
sportsman could wish. In walking up a ravine or hill-side,
if put up by dogs a little distance above, they will often fly
into the trees close above his head, and two or three allow
themselves to be quietly knocked over in succession. When
flushed from any place where they have sheltered, whether on
the ground or aloft, they fly off to some distant cover, and
alight on the ground in preference to the trees.
" Their call is a loud whistling chuckle or chirrup ; it may
occasionally be heard from the midst of some thicket or
coppice at any hour of the day, but is not of very frequent
occurrence. It is generally uttered when the bird rises, and,
if it flics into a tree near, often continued some time. When
flushed by a cat or a small animal, this chuckling is always
loud and earnest. ,
" The Kalij is very pugnacious, and the males have frequent
battles. On one occasion I had shot a male, which lay
fluttering on the ground in its death struggles, when another
rushed out of the jungle and attacked it with the greatest
fury, though I was standing reloading the gun close by. The
male often makes a singular drumming noise with its wings,
not unlike the sound produced by shaking in the air a stiff
piece of cloth. It is heard only in the pairing season ; but
whether to attract the attention of the females or in defiance
of his fellows I cannot say, as I have never seen the bird in the
act, though often led to the spot where they were by the sound."
This is certainly not to attract the females, but solely as a
defiance. If you peg out a tame male of the allied vcrmicellated
Pheasant in the breeding season, as is commonly done
in Burma, surrounding him with snares, and then set your
male drumming, by imitating the sound with a piece of stiff
cloth, male after male replies, rushes in at your bird and gets
caught in the snares, but no female ever puts in an appearance
or is ever thus snared..