may be killed in an hour's walk, while at other times half that
number is a fair bag for a good shot and a persevering walker
to bring home after a whole day's shooting."
I would add that, as is the case with all our Hill Pheasants,
you require, if you want to enjoy the sport, a couple of good
strong dogs, middle-sized spaniels, with good noses and trained
to retrieve.
In a recent letter to me Wilson says :—" There is one
peculiarity about the Moonal which I forgot to notice. Whereever
they are rare, there they are also sure to be very wild and
shy. This is the case whether we look to countries widely
separated, in one of which the birds are numerous, and in the other
scarce, or to different neighbouring localities. For instance,
Moonal arc comparatively rare in Kashmir, while they are
very abundant in Garhwal. In the former country they are
very wild and shy ; in the latter, as a rule, quite tame in comparison.
Hut even in Garhwal, there are in many places miles and
miles of forest, the Gangutri forests, for instance, where
Moonals arc as rare as in Kashmir, and in these places they
arc quite as wild ; while in other forests, barely a day's march
distant, they arc plentiful and Barn-door Fowls in comparative
tamencss."
The great demand for the brilliant skins of the Moonal that
has existed for many years has led to their almost total
extermination in some parts of the hills, as the native shikaris
shoot and snare for the pot as well as for skins, and
kill as many females as males. On the other hand, though for
nearly thirty years my friend Mr. Wilson has yearly sent home
from 1,000 to 1,500 skins of this species and the Tragopan,
there are still in the woods whence they were obtained as many
as, if not more than, when he first entered them, simply because
he has rigidly preserved females and nests, and (as amongst
English Pheasants) one cock suffices for several hens.
No doubt the number of birds has greatly decreased in many
of the more frequented localities during the past decade even,
but I know scores of rather out-of-the-way forest-clad ranges
where a man, who worked for them late in autumn or in winter,
would still have no difficulty in bringing from five to eight brace
to book in a day. It is common to lament the Moonal as rapidly
becoming a thing of the past, but let sportsmen cheer up, there
is a right good sprinkling of them still left.
I see that Wilson says nothing very definite as to range of
elevation, and I may say that this varies commonly from about
6,000 to 12,000 feet, partly according to season, and partly
according to the individual idiosyncracy of the bird. But I have
shot an old cock, sunning himself on the point of a projecting
rock just like a snow cock, at close to 15,000 feet elevation,
and I have known stragglers killed by my people after bad
weather in quite low valleys, not above 4,500 feet above sea level.
During the winter the natives trap and snare them throughout
the Himalayas, and since skins of males have become worth
Rs. 5 or 6 a piece, even to the villager who captures the bird,
this business has received a great stimulus. The most common
plan is to set nooses of sinew, gut, or the fibres of one of the hill
nettles, about the localities they affect, in between a couple of
rocks or bushes, or in openings purposely left in some small
artificial barrier; but in some places they catch them with
falling blocks of wood, just as capercailzie are trapped in
Norway and Sweden.
Once or twice late in April I have come upon males nautching,
with wings drooped, tail cocked and outspread, and breast
almost touching the ground, shivering and quivering spasmodically,
and moving backwards and forwards with tiny steps like
Turkey-cocks, but the birds were always off before I could
really study the peculiarities of their nuptial dance.
THE MOONAL breeds throughout the forest-clad ranges of the
Himalayas, at any rate from Kashmir to Bhutan, at elevations
of from 7,000 or 8,000 to fully 12,000 feet.
The breeding season is in May and June. They have only
one brood, and the female alone incubates the eggs and rears
the young.
Usually the eggs are laid in a bare depression in the
ground, scratched by the female, under the shelter of some
overhanging rock, the massive root of some large tree, or some
thick tuft of fern, but at times the hollow is more or less
lined with dry grass, dead leaves, or a little moss.
In localities where they are very numerous, e.g., on the
" Chor" not far from Simla, several nests may be found within a
circle of a hundred yards, as if the females were, even at this
season (as they are at all others), more or less gregarious.
Six is the largest number of eggs that I have known to be found
in any one nest, and four or five is certainly the usual number ;
but native sportsmen talk of finding occasionally as many as a
dozen.
Long ago my old friend " Mountaineer" remarked : " The
female makes her nest under a small overhanging bush or tuft of
grass, and lays five eggs of a dull white, speckled with reddish
brown. The chicks are hatched about the end of May."
He now writes to me from Garhwal:—
" The Moonal breeds at elevations from 8,000 to r2,ooo feet
in all sorts of forest. Some begin to lay early in May, others
not till the end of the month. The nest is placed in much the
same situations as that of the Koklass, that is to say, always
under some slight shelter, an overhanging bush or tuft of grass,
or rock or stone, or in the hollow at the foot of a tree, or under
an old trunk. It is merely a hole scraped in the ground, but
bits of grass, leaves, &c, which are round it, are often dropped