AEGUS PHEASANT 167 



Malayan Peacock-pheasant. 



Poll/plectrum hicalcaratiim. 



The Malay peacock-pheasant has the same grizzled style of 

 plumage, ornamented with eye-spots, as the better known grey 

 species, but is brown, not grey, and darker in tint, the minute 

 speckling which produces the grizzled effect being black on a 

 ground of pale brown. In addition to this difference, which 

 characterizes both sexes, the cock has a purple or green glossed 

 crest and a red face, while in the hen the eye-spots are much 

 better developed, especially on the tail, than in the hen of the 

 common species, in which they are represented only by faintly 

 glossed dark spots on most of the feathers. 



Practically nothing seems to be known about this species in 

 the wild state, except that it is found in the Peninsula south of 

 Tenasserim, and is suspected of ranging as far north as that 

 district. It is also found in Sumatra. As it was described as 

 long ago as 1760, less than twenty years after the common species, 

 and many skins and a few live specimens have reached Europe, 

 it seems strange that it is still so little known, though of course 

 a forest-haunting bird in a pre-eminently jungly country is not 

 the sort to be easily studied anywhere, and is likely to remain 

 long unfamiliar unless in a district well settled by Europeans, 

 such as much of the range of the grey peacock-pheasant. 



Argus Pheasant. 



Argusianus argus. Quou, Malay. 



The true argus pheasant of Malaysia, one of the most remark- 

 able birds known, is the sort of creature which the proverbial blind 

 man in a dark room could hardly miss, for if either party moved 

 about at all he would be pretty certain to come across the enormous 

 centre-tail feathers, twisted-tipped, and between four and five feet 

 long. The wings, however, of the cock argus are still more 

 extraordinary, the secondary quills, which in most birds barely 

 cover the flight feathers in repose and generally expose a good 

 deal of the tips of these, being about twice as long as the 



