208 THE VERMICELLATED nlEASANT.
occur anywhere about Mergui or to the south of that place.
Not long ago it used to occur in the immediate neighbourhood
of Moulmein, but all seem to have been trapped or shot off now.
" They come continually into the open to feed about rice
fields and clearings. They arc shy, and usually run in preference
to flying when disturbed, except when put up by a
dog, when they immediately perch. Captain Bingham tells me
that on bright moonlight nights they constantly come out into
the clearings. Their food consists of grain, seeds of various
kinds, young leaves and grass, grubs, and insects.
" They seem to prefer bamboo, or moderately thin tree
jungle, to dense forest. They are found singly, in pairs, and
sometimes several together; when disturbed, they utter a
peculiar clicking noise. The Burmans trap numbers of males
with the aid of a decoy bird, which is taken to the jungle and
fastened by the leg to a peg and surrounded by a circle of
nooses ; the decoy bird calls and makes a peculiar buzzing
sound with his wings, and any males within hearing arc attracted
by the sound, and, rushing up to attack the decoy bird, are
caught in the nooses. The birds arc very pugnacious, and even
in a wild state arc continually fighting with each other."
It is, I notice, a mistake to suppose that this plan of capturing
the males can only be adopted in the breeding season. The
tame male can always be induced to " buzz" by imitating the
sound from some place hidden to him. This the Burmans do
by twisting very rapidly between the palms of the hands a
small stick, into a split at the top of which a piece of stiff cloth
or a stiff leaf has been transversely inserted.
Nor is it a fact that this peculiar noise is only made by the
wild birds during the breeding season, or that it is as rare to
hear it as Colonel Tickell makes out in his amusing notice of
it that I shall now quote. On the contrary, Davison tells me
that he has heard it fifty times, and several times in both December
and January.
Colonel Tickell says:—
"The noise in question is the most extraordinary and the
most unnatural, that is to say, the most unbirdlike, I have
ever heard. I was one day, in the cold season of 1859-60,
looking out for a rhinoceros in the hills which skirt the eastern
limits of the Tenasserim provinces. Some very recent marks
of the animal were pointed out to me by my Karen guides, and
following the traces through the jungle down the hill-side, I
was at last brought up by a profound ravine. While some of
my party left me to reach the bottom of this dell by a more
circuitous and practicable route and I remained perched on the
steep declivity, a singular reverberating sound reached my ears,
proceeding apparently from the deep valley below me. It was
a tremulous subdued noise, as if the mountains were shuddering
in an ague fit, and I, who was thinking of nothing but rhinoce-
TIIE VERMICELLATED PHEASANT. 209
roses at the time, and had made up my mind to see a host of
them emerge from the dense jungle as the result of so strange
a symphony, was utterly amazed by my Karen companions
telling me the noise was made by the " Y i t s " (Hill Pheasants).
I could not help smiling at such a singularly literal illustration
of the fabled mountain in labour with the nascitur ridiculus mus
enacted by these funny birds. I have only on that occasion
heard this extraordinary sound, though for weeks at a
time journeying and living in forests abounding in Hill
Pheasants."
Darling, writing from the Tenasserim Hills in the Moulmein
District, says:—
" This bird was also very common at Thowngyah,—its habits
the same as those of the Grey Peacock Pheasant,—feeding in
thick clumps of bamboos and bushes in small parties. I have
never seen them in the open. Unlike the Peacock Pheasant,
however, this bird, when disturbed, at once flics away, sometimes
getting into a tree, but generally with a noiseless and low flight
a long way into the jungle ; when roused they always emit
a whistled ' yit.'
T i n s srEClES breeds from almost sea level up to an elevation
of at least three thousand feet.
The season varies according to locality and elevation, and a
fresh egg or two may be found in the first week of March, and a
clutch of eggs not yet hatched off up to quite the middle of May.
Apparently in some localities they breed much later, or perhaps
they have two broods in the year. Captain Feiidcn has
seen young, recently-hatched chicks, at Thayetmyo in August.
The nest is cither a slight hollow scratched in the ground
and thinly lined or sprinkled with dry leaves and perhaps a few
feathers, or it is a depression scratched out or indented into
some natural heap or bed of dry leaves.
The nest is generally placed at the foot of some tree, or
beside some fallen monarch of the forest, or in some dense
clump of bamboo. Generally it is well concealed, but at times
nests are met with in comparatively very exposed positions.
Seven or eight is the usual complement of eggs, but natives
talk of finding fourteen and fifteen at times, so tbat possibly
occasionally two hens may lay in the same place.
Writing from Tenasserim, Captain Bingham says t —
"On the 16th March, while pushing through some thick bamboo
jungle, I found at the foot of a Pynkadoe tree (Xylia dolabriformis)
a nest of this handsome Pheasant, and managed to shoot
the female by hiding close by. The nest contained seven eggs,
slightly set, placed in a little hollow that had been scratched in
the ground and lined with leaves and a few feathers. The eggs
are a pinkish stone colour, minutely pitted all over."