98 BULLETIN 186, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



grass which carpets such forest ; when startled, they ran swiftly until 

 out of sight around a bend or hurtled at once into the nearby ever- 

 green. 



My specimen had the irides brown ; the orbital skin bright red ; the 

 bill pale olive ; the feet and toes steel gray. 



The male has the crown and ear coverts dull olive-brown ; the chin 

 and throat black, glossed steel blue ; the neck, upper breast, and upper 

 back steel blue ; the middle back glossy copper red, the feathers tipped 

 steel blue ; the lower back and rump silvery white, barred black ; the 

 long, pointed tail soft gray with narrow, widely spaced black bars; 

 the wings chestnut, with a broad white bar running from the lower 

 back to the shoulder and a broad steel-blue bar and two broad white 

 bars across them ; the under tail coverts black ; the remaining under- 

 pays chestnut. I have not seen the female; it may be known from 

 other northern pheasants by its having the feet and toes gray, like 

 the male. 



POLYPLECTRON BICALCARATUM BICALCARATUM (Linnaeus) 



Burmese Peacock Pheasant 



[Pavo] oicalcaratus Linnaeus, Systema naturae, ed. 10, vol. 1, 175S, p. 156 



(China, error; Thoungyah, Burma, designated as type locality by Lowe, 



Ibis, 1925, p. 477). 

 Polyplectron oicalcaratus, Gyldenstolpe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., 



1913, p. 66 (MaeRaem). 

 Polyplectron malaccensis, Gyldenstolpe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., 



1916, p. 158 (Khun Tan). 

 Polyplectron oicalcaratum, Gyldenstolpe, Ibis, 1920, p. 737 ("Northern Siam"). 



The peacock pheasant is apparently rare, but I believe that this 

 is due, not to actual scarcity, but to the extraordinary shyness of the 

 bird and the impenetrable undergrowth in which it lives. It is now 

 known from our provinces by but two skins, one in Stockholm from 

 Khun Tan and the other from Doi Pha Horn Pok in Philadelphia. I 

 never was able to find it at all but on Doi Chiang Dao and again on Phu 

 Kha heard distant calls, which were attributed by the hillmen to this 

 species. 



This is a small pheasant. The cock has the throat white; the rest 

 of the plumage dark brown, everywhere finely freckled with buffy 

 white; the feathers of the mantle, the scapulars, wing coverts, inner 

 secondaries, longer upper tail coverts, and tail feathers with a large, 

 round ocellus near the tip, glossy blue or green and purple, framed in 

 a buffy ring. The hen has the throat white; the remainder of the 

 plumage brown, mottled with paler brown ; the ocelli fewer and reduced 

 in size and gloss, especially on the back and wings. 



