586 



MONAL 



Phasianidsi, the Impeyan Pheasants of many writers, so called 

 because one of them was introduced to notice by Sir Elijah and 

 Lady Impey on returning from India in 1784.^ But the species 

 thus made known, the true L. impeianux, seems to have a re- 



LopHOPHORUs REFULOENS. (After Swainson.) 



stricted range in southern Cashmere (Chamba), and is not common 

 in collections, a nearly allied one, L. refulgens, which frecpients 

 the forests of the southern slopes of the Himalayas, from eastern 

 Affghanistan to western Bhotan, being generally mistaken for 

 it.- Its habits, described by Mr. Frederic Wilson, writing in 

 1S4S, as "Mountaineer" in The India _ Sporting Eeriew (viii. pp. 

 143-148), and quoted by Jerdon {B. Tad. iii. pp. 511-515), are 

 completely those of an ordinary Pheasant, though it often shews 

 a greater partiality for perching upon a tree when made to take 

 wing. In some districts it seems to have been extremely numerous 

 not so many years ago, b\xt there is reason to fear that, in spite of 

 the well-intended action of the Indian G-overnment, this is not so 

 now ; for the cocks have been killed liy thousands to meet the 

 " plume " market, and their refulgent feathers are not oidy largely 

 used by women to bedizen their persons, but also in the construc- 

 tion of fans, screens and the like. The hens are fortunately 

 without special adoi^nment, and carry on their maternal duties 

 comparatively unmolested in a modest attire admiralily adapted 

 to concealment, and in strong contrast to the brilliant hues of their 

 mates, whose plumage of shining green and blue over nearly the 



1 Cavier in 1829 {Rtipie Animal, ed. 2, i. p. 474), and after him Yule {Marco 

 Polo, i. p. 248), believe that it was described by ^lian [Nat. Anim. xvi. 2), but what 

 the last says of his "Great Indian Cock," though in several respects fitting the 

 Monaul, seems too vague to make this certain. Some suppose that ^Elian took 

 his information from Ctesias, but the fragments of the latter speak only (Indica, 

 cap. 3) of very big Indian Cocks, a MS. at Munich reading, according to P. J. C. 

 F. Biihr (Francof. a/M. : 1824, p. 269), dXeKTpvovf.s tlis irpb^aTa— cocks as- big as 

 sheep\ Mr. M'Crindle, in his edition of Ctesias (Bombay : 1882, p. 36, note), 

 also thinks he had this bird in view, but woefully misspells its scientific name. 



- L. impcia.nus has the lower part of the back and body generally of a golden- 

 green, while in L. rcfidgcns the former is white and the latter black. The correc- 

 tion of the common mistake is due to Mr. Ogilvie-Grant {Cat. B. Br. Mas. xxii. ]>. 

 278), and is the more welcome since the original species had been redescribcd 

 {Ihis, 1884, p. 421, ph X.) under the new name of Z. chamhauv.a. 



