230



Mr. R. I. Pocock,



the interest of the fact that the display of the Argus Pheasant is

merely an exaggeration of the display of the Peacock-pheasant,

and that the display of the latter is joined by intermediate links

to that of ordinary Pheasants on the one hand, and of Peacocks

and Turkeys on the other.


Darwin, it will be noticed, contrasted the display of the

Peacock-pheasant with that of the Peacock, and likened it to that

of the Tragopan. He pointed out, however, that the Tragopan

differs from the Peacock-pheasant in not opening its wings; but

he made no allusion to the fact that the Peacock’s wings are

partially spread in display. Thus the difference between these

two birds is not quite so great as might be inferred from the

contrast drawn between them. Judging nevertheless from his

account, the Peacock-pheasant in its manner of self-exhibition

falls into the same category of game-birds as the true Pheasants

which practise what T. W. Wood * called the ‘ lateral ’ or ‘ one¬

sided ’ method—that is to say they present one side of the head,

body and tail to the hen, stretch the neck downwards or forwards,

raise the off shoulder and further side of the back and spread the

feathers of the tail in a vertical plane, to a greater or less extent,

in such a way as to convey the impression of attempting to show

at one moment the greatest possible expanse of colour compatible

with the attitude assumed. The wings, however, are kept closed

or the near one may be lowered to a small extent. More than

forty years ago, T. W. Wood described this method in the Com¬

mon and Japanese Pheasants ( Phasianus colchicus and versicolor )

and in the Gold Pheasant {Chrysolophus pieties) ; there is a

coloured plate of it as exhibited by the Common Pheasant in

Mr. J. G. Millais’s Natural History of British Game Birds, facing

p. 86; and one showing the very similar pose of the Amherst

Pheasant ( Chrysolophus amherstice) may be seen in Mr. Pycraft’s

recent book “A History of Birds.” I have myself watched it in

these species, as well as in other kinds of Phasianus, in Swinhoe’s

Kalij {Gennceus swinhoii), and in the Satyr Tragopan ( Tragopait

or Ceriornis satyra). The phenomenon, indeed, must be familiar

to all who have kept pheasants of diverse sorts in captivity.

There are, as might be expected, detailed differences in the



“ The Student,” 1870, p. 115, cited by Darwin. I have not seen this periodical.



