I9I9'] Monograph of the Pheasants. 81 



local variation must always remain a matter of personal 

 opinion, it does not much matter liow we regard these 

 points. I should like^ however, to call attention to the 

 perhaps unnecessary subdivision of the genus Ithagenes, and 

 will begin by asking why he calls them " Blood Partridges" 

 and not, as Indian ornithologists and sportsmen have hitherto 

 done, "Blood Pheasants^'? Perdix is a name which in 

 various Latin tongues (Perdrix in French, Perdice in 

 Italian, Perdiz in Spanish, and Partridge in English) 

 is thoroughly understood in all countries where true Par- 

 tridges are found; and though in Africa it has been applied 

 in ignorance by colonists to various Francolins, and in 

 North America to some Grouse, it has no proper application 

 to any member of the Phasianime ; and it might easily lead 

 American naturalists to suppose that Ithagenes had some 

 resemblance in liabits, plumage, or structure to the true Par- 

 tridges, which so far as I know it has not. Captain Beebe^s 

 reasons for this classification, as given in the Introduction, 

 seem to me too slight. On p. xxv he says : — " The first 

 two groups of birds which I have included in the present 

 work, the Blood Partridges and Tragopans, judged by the 

 tail-moult and other characters as well, are on the Quail 

 and Partridge side of the line, but I have included them as 

 representing the genera most nearly allied to the Pheasants/' 

 Now it may be objected that such a trifling secondary 

 character as the moult of the tail-feathers is not a sufficient 

 basis on which to define the subfamily Pliasiauhue. I should 

 be the last to criticise such a course, because in revising the 

 butterflies of the genus Parnassius (P. Z. S. 1886) I founded, 

 on a secondary sexual character which is only developed in the 

 act of reproduction, a new subfamily to include them ; and 

 if no better characters can be found, I see no reason to reject 

 the classification. But with regard to the separation of the 

 ^'\W\.\va Ithagenes from the one inhabiting central Nepal, which 

 Captain Beebe has done on what I think very insufficient 

 evidence, I entirely agree with the remarks of Mr. Stuart 

 Baker (Il)is, 1915, p. 124) : and with an intimate personal 

 knowledge of the Blood Pheasant in Sikkim, I am able to 



SlCll. XI. — vot. I. G 



