The wattle of Cabot's Tragopan.



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THE WATTLE OF CABOT’S TRAGOPAN.


By Hubert D. Astley, M.A.


I have to criticize, and that adversely, the coloured plate of

the wattle of Cabot’s Tragopan as depicted in that splendid work

A Monograph of the Pheasants, by William Beebe. The colouring

as well as the shape is almost entirely incorrect.


I have had the great misfortune to lose my magnificent male

Cabot, which I found dead without any warning on March 28, just

as he appeared to be in fine breeding form, and was displaying to

his mate day by day. The bird was in very good condition, but had

nothing in his crop. Well! I made a close examination of the

wattle, then fully developed. In Mr. Beebe’s Monograph of the

Pheasants it appears as dull orange in the centre with magenta

spots, surrounded by pale dull blue and yellowish-grey ; furthermore,

there is no scolloping on the outside edge around the whole wattle.

The horns also appear as pale mauve blue. It would seem as if

the painting by Mr. Gronvold has been done from a faded skin.

The gular flap, instead of following the line of the throat, as in his

painting, hangs out immediately from the base of the lower mandible,

and curves from the throat very conspicuously.


The colours are as follows in a living bird : Skin of face,

gular flap, and centre of wattle, a most vivid and brilliant orange,

the orange of the centre of the wattle being boldly spotted with

a warm lead grey, not magenta. Outside the orange area are waves

of a lovely turquoise blue-green, alternating with bright flesh colour,

except at the base, where the turquoise predominates. The whole

wattle is distinctly and beautifully scolloped. The scollops are gold,

i.e. really the colour of a bright “old” gold with an edging of

turquoise within.


The horns are also brilliant turquoise blue, inclining to an

equally brilliant verdigris green.


The plate gives no idea whatever of the great beauty of this

Tragopan’s wattle and fleshy horns, neither in the plate of the bird

itself is the orange of the face and gular flap nearly brilliant enough.


It is curious that at the back of the wattle underneath the



