342 JOUMNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIHT. SOCIETY, Vol. XXV. 



on the lower plumage and always to have a certain amount of rufous 

 barring on the feathers like the hen of rufi'pes. To the East of its 

 range the female more closely approaches rufyies and has still less of 

 the white and more of the rufous barring below. The tail is on an 

 average decidedly longer than that of the Ruby Mines Silver 

 Pheasant, yet shorter than that of the Chinese bird. I have been 

 able to examine very few females of this species, but the colours of 

 the soft parts and the dimensions seem to agree with those of the 

 Chinese Silver Pheasant. 



Distribution. — This subspecies is confined to the inter Salwin- 

 Mekong country from latitudes 21° to 25° certainly; possibly 

 farther North than the former and probably further South than the 

 latter. Where this bird meets s/iarpei is at present unknown, but 

 there is probably a line where the two subspecies meet, and are not 

 definable one from the other, on the ridges and hills which run East 

 and West from Karen-nee to Doi-par-Sakem, or a little South of 

 this in Siam. 



Nidification. — Nothing known. 



General Habits. — So far nothing has been recorded of the habits 

 of this very doubtful subspecies, which will not, however, be found 

 to differ in any respect from those of true nycthemerus. Like that 

 bird it is found on hills covered either with a sea of grass, with light 

 deciduous forest, or in places where these are mixed with and broken 

 up by ravines and pockets of more dense jungle, often more or less 

 evergreen in character. 



It appears to prefer wide stretches of grass-land boi'deredby forest 

 in which it can conceal itself in case of necessity, and especially does 

 it haunt such as are rough and rugged and a good deal broken up 

 with out-crops of rock. It is not, as far as is known at present, 

 found bf^low 5,000 feet elevation, and is found up to the highest 

 altitudes of 9,000 feet or more ; that is to say, this bird, a trifle 

 darker in general tint than its Chinese i*elations, is also found at 

 slightly lower elevations. 



It would appear to be most common in Yunnan in the Trans- 

 Salwin Hills at about 7,000 feet, where it is found in great numbers 

 in the thin oak foi-ests which are scattered about in small patches in 

 the higher grass-lands, and where the only really dense vegetation 

 is to be found in the wild tangles of growth on the borders of some 

 of the streams and in the larger ravines. 



Writing of such a country as this, a correspondent says iv 

 epistola : — 



" I'm afraid I cannot give j'ou nearly as much information 

 " about this beautiful bird as you may expect. In spite of its 

 " being found generally in grass rather than in heavy trees or 

 •' bush cover, it is not an easy bird to find, and still less easy 



