202 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



distinguishable species, named Calophasis hurmaniais. The 

 typical form with the lower back having a variegated colouring 

 of steel-blue with white feather-borders is the Manipur bird, 

 and it is this that Hume discovered and named after his wife — 

 a way of commemorating oneself (by giving the lady's married 

 surname instead of her Christian name), which is, unfortunately, 

 not unique in the annals of descriptive ornithology. This was 

 in 1881, and Hume could only get two specimens, both of them 

 males ; but though few have since come to hand, the female is 

 now known, and the Shan States, as well as Burma, have been 

 added to the range of the species. 



The hen, in her brown mottled plumage, has nothing dis- 

 tinctive about her appearance but the chestnut white-tipped 

 outer tail-feathers, and fortunately these are just what would 

 be conspicuous in flight ; her tail is shorter than that of an 

 English hen pheasant, though the cock's is quite up to the usual 

 cock-pheasant's standard of length, but grey in ground colour 

 instead of the olive-brown seen in the home cock-pheasant's tail. 



In Manipur these birds are found inhabiting hill-forests, and 

 range from 2,500 to 8,000 feet ; they extend, according to Hume, 

 " right through the Kamhow territory into Eastern Looshai, 

 and North-west Independent Burma." 



The Burmese and Shan States race, which was described by 

 Oates as distinct in 1898, seems to be similar in habits, also 

 frequenting wooded hills. Although I was the first to draw 

 attention to the distinction between the two races, I did not, 

 and do not now, consider them as distinct species, the characters 

 being liable to variation; and I have always thought that the 

 describing of a new species is an act requiring justification, not 

 one to be proud of. 



As an example of the futility of species-splitting, I may men- 

 tion that two male specimens of this pheasant in the Indian 

 Museum, obtained respectively by Lieutenant H. H. Turner in 

 the Chin Hills, and by Lieutenant H. Wood in Upper Burma, 

 agreed with the Manipur form in having the rump blue with 

 narrow white edgings. As Hume's birds were trapped, and few 

 have seen the species wild. Lieutenant Turner's notes are worth 

 quoting ; they appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 



