y^* 



I!1MLI3RAR Y) 30 



JOURNAL '^^""^ 



OF THE 



Bombay Natural History Society. 



Sept. 1917. Vol. XXV. No. 2. 



THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND T'EYLON. 



BY 



E. C. Stuart Bakee, F.L.S., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



Part XXII. 

 With a Coloured Plate. 



PHASIANIDiE. 



GQUU&—GENNJEUS. 



In 1915 I wrote a revision of this beautiful group of pheasants, 

 which appeared in tlie Journal of this Society, Vol. XXIII, p. 

 658 (May 1915). I then gave at considerable length my reasons 

 for retaining some of the species and sub-species which had been 

 described by Gates and others, and for eliminating a large number 

 which, with the greater material then available, were found to be 

 untenable. 



Since this review was published, there are only two points upon 

 which I have been able to obtain further evidence and material to 

 show that the deductions then drawn require alteration. 



The first of these necessitates the suppression of cuvieri. There 

 appears to be no doiibt that this so-called sub-species has no definite 

 geographical range, but crops up here and there where the 

 lower habitat of horsjleldi meets suddenly the higher habitat of 

 nijdhemerus ruiipes, icilliamsi, or oatesi. The skins which I have 

 been able to examine show that ciwieri is either a hybrid between 

 totally distinct species, or merely forms a very thin, ill-defined 

 1 



