186 ON PHASIANUS IGNITUS 



a specimen with a mutilated tail , had been presented to 

 Lord Macartney, the British Embassador in China, during 

 his visit to Batavia, unfortunately we do not learn where 

 this bird , which had been kept in a menagery at Batavia , 

 had come from , and it is far from probable that Java 

 should be the habitat of this species. 



As I was not able to consult Staunton's work myself, 

 Dr. Sharpe kindly furnished me with a copy of the original 

 description, which begins as follows: ... »The Embassador's 

 host had a very curious collection in the several depart- 

 ments of Natural History. He made presents to his guests 

 of several specimens. Among them was a beautiful phea- 

 sant, which on being sent to England and shewn to a 

 gentleman of acknowledged eminence in all branches of 

 zoology. Doctor Shaw of the British Museum. He was of 

 opinion that this superb pheasant was a bird which , from 

 every examination of the writers on ornithological subjects , 

 appeared yet undescribed." After a long and somewhat 

 confuse description , from which we learn that the specimen 

 had a very mutilated tail, its essential characters are resumed 

 as follows: »It may be called the fire-backed pheasant, and 

 its essential characters may be delineated in the following 

 terms: black pheasant with a steel-blue gloss: the sides 

 of the body rufous: the lower part of the back fiery 

 ferruginous, the tail rounded ; the two middle feathers: 

 pale yellow brown." 



From this we may conclude that the bird in question 

 with fulvous central tail-feathers had only the flanks red 

 and therefore cannot be identified with the red-breasted 

 L. nohilis. 



A few years afterwards, about 1800, Shaw andNodder, 

 in Nat. Misc. pi. 321 , unquestionably described the same 

 specimen under the name of PAasiawMs (^'^zzYu.s. They describe 

 »the sides of the body rufous, the two middle 

 tail-feathers yellowish brown". On the plate the 

 central tail-feathers are represented as cinnamon or pale 

 chestnut. 



Notes from the Leyden M^useum, "Vol. XVII. 



