THE ARGUS PHEASANTS. 7 I 



of the feathers ; each of these eyes yellowish in the centre, 

 shading into white on the one side and reddish-brown on the 

 other, and bounded by a black band; under-parts black with 

 wavy bars and markings of chestnut and buff. Naked skin on 

 sides of head and throat dark blue. Total length, 72 inches ; 

 wing to the end of the primary quills, 19; to the end of the 

 secondaries, 34 ; tail, 50 ; tarsus, 4*4. 



Adult Female. — Neck chest7iiit^ slightly mottled with black, 

 shading into reddish-buff on the mantle, which is thickly 

 mottled with black ; lower back bright buff, barred and 

 mottled with black ; wing-coverts and secondary quills black, 

 thickly covered with buff hieroglyphics ; primary quills chest- 

 nut, irregularly marked with black ; under-parts rufous^ finely 

 mottled with black. Total length, 30 inches ; wing to the end 

 of the primary quills, 13 ; to the end of the secondaries, 15 ; 

 tail, i2'5 ; tarsus, 4. 



Range. — Laos Mountains, Siam, South Tenasserim, the 

 Malay Peninsula, and Sum.atra. 



Hatits. — The late Mr. W. R. Davison, who had exceptional 

 opportunities of studying the habits of the Argus Pheasant, gives 

 the following excellent account : — " They live quite solitarily, 

 both males and females. Every male has his own drawing- 

 room, of which he is excessively proud, and which he keeps 

 scrupulously clean. They haunt exclusively the depths of the 

 evergreen forests, and each male chooses some open level spot 

 — sometimes down in a dark, gloomy ravine entirely surrounded 

 and shut in by dense crane-brakes and rank vegetation ; 

 sometimes on the top of a hill where the jungle is com- 

 paratively open — from which he clears all the dead leaves and 

 weeds for a space of six or eight yards square, until nothing 

 but the bare clean earth remains, and thereafter he keeps this 

 place scrupulously clean, removing carefully every dead leaf or 

 twig that may happen to fall on it from the trees above. 



" These cleared spaces are undoubtedly used as dancing- 



