The Display of the Peacock-pheasant. 229


THE DISPLAY OF THE PEACOCK-PHEASANT.


Polypledron chinquis.


By R. I. Pocock, F.R.S.


In “The Descent of Man,” pp. 396-400 of ed. 2, 1883, may

be found a longish account, illustrated by two woodcuts, of the

courtship-display of the males of the Peacock-pheasant and

Argus Pheasant. To this are added, by way of comparison and

contrast, brief allusions to the display of the Peacock and

Tragopan. On information supplied to him by the elder Bartlett,

Darwiu wrote of the Peacock-pheasant (. Polypledron ) as follows : —

“ The tail and wing-feathers of this bird are ornamented with

beautiful ocelli, like those 011 the Peacock’s train. Now when

the Peacock displays himself, he expands and erects his tail

transversely to his body, for he stands in front of the female,

and has to show off, at the same time, his rich bine throat and

breast. But the breast of the Polypledroit is obscurely coloured,

and the ocelli are not confined to the tail-feathers. Consequently

the Polypledron does not stand in front of the female ; but he

erects and expands his tail-feathers a little obliquely, lowering

the expanded wing on the same side, and raising that on the


opposite side.The male Tragopan Pheasant acts in


nearly the same manner, for he raises the feathers of the body,

though not the wing itself, on the side which is opposite to

[turned away from] the female, and which would otherwise be

concealed, so that nearly all the beautifully-spotted feathers are

exhibited at the same time.” Then follows the description of

the display of the Argus Pheasant, which is referred to as “ a

much more remarkable case ” ; but possibly because the author

was not specially dealing with display from the comparative

point of view, he made no comparison between the method

employed by the Argus Pheasant and the method employed by

the other game-birds he mentioned ; and the impression remains

that the display of the Argus Pheasant is unique in its entire

want of resemblance to that of any other species of the group.


As will appear in the sequel, Darwin would probably have

written otherwise than he did on this subject if the information

he had received as to the display of the Peacock-pheasant had

been complete; for he would have been the first to appreciate



