Once in a lifetime, perhaps, he may
see them gather in a close circle--tails together, heads out, like the
spokes of a wheel, and so go to sleep for the night. Their soft
whistlings and chirpings at such times form the most delightful sound
one ever hears in the woods.
This call of the male bird is not difficult to imitate. Hunters who
know the birds will occasionally use it to call a scattered covey
together, or to locate the male birds, which generally answer the
leader's call. I have frequently called a flock of the birds into a
thicket at sunset, and caught running glimpses of them as they hurried
about, looking for the bugler who called taps.
All this occurred to me late one afternoon in the great Zoological
Gardens at Antwerp. I was watching a yard of birds--three or four
hundred representatives of the pheasant family from all over the
earth that were running about among the rocks and artificial copses.
Some were almost as wild as if in their native woods, especially the
smaller birds in the trees; others had grown tame from being
constantly fed by visitors.
[Illustration]
It was rather confusing to a bird lover, familiar only with home
birds, to see all the strange forms and colors in the grass, and to
hear a chorus of unknown notes from trees and underbrush.
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