i ALLEN'S naturalist's LILRAtlY. 



Phasiaiius staceii^ Vig. Phil. Mag. 1831, p. 232; id. P.Z.S. 1831, 



p. 35- 

 Catreus ivallichii, Gould. Cent. B. Himal. pi. 68 (1832) ; id. 

 Birds of Asia, vii. pi. 18 (1865); Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. B. 

 Brit. Mus. xxii. p. 317 (1893). 



Adult Male. — Top of the head dark brown, all the feathers, es- 

 pecially those of the crest, tipped with dirty white ; throat, neck, 

 and chest dirty white ; upper back, breast, and sides of the belly 

 creamy-white, the feathers of the former widely fringed with 

 whitish-grey ; wings ochraceous-buff, all these parts being 

 barred and marked with black; lower back and rump rust-colour^ 

 with black bars glossed with green ; middle of belly black ; 

 quills brownish-black, edged and mottled with buff; tail-feathers 

 whitish-buff, the middle pair with wide irregular black bars 

 changing to dark chestnut on the inner webs of the outer 

 pairs. Total length, 34 inches; wing, 10; tail, 20*5; tarsus, 

 2-9. 



Adult Female. — Differs from the male chiefly in having the 

 feathers of the head and crest edged with buff ; the upper back 

 pale chestnut, widely barred with black ; and the lower back 

 and rump dirty brown^ mixed with black and buff; the neck 

 and chest black, edged with buff, the breast and belly rufous- 

 chestnut, edged with buff and more or less mottled with black, 

 the quills regularly barred \s\\\i buff on the outer and/rz/^ chest- 

 nut on the i?iner webs, and the tail-feathers brown or reddish- 

 brown with wide mottled bars of black and buff, except on 

 the outermost pairs, which are mostly buff. Total length, 30 

 inches; wing, 8-9; tail, 15*5; tarsus, 2-6. 



Range. — The Himalayas, extending eastwards as far as Kat- 

 mandu, in Nepal, and westwards to Chamba, but not apparently 

 to Kashmir. 



Habits.— Mr. A. O. Hume writes : — " The Cheer is extremely 

 locally distributed, and seems to me very capricious in its choice 

 of habitations ; on one side of a river you meet with plenty in 



