2 14 GALLIFORMES chap. 



fly short distances when flushed ; the note is a shrill crow, a 

 " whistling chuckle " or a " chirrup ; " the food is as usual in 

 Pheasants. The pugnacious male is said to strut with outspread 

 tail, and to drum with his wings while courting ; the nest, 

 formed of dry herbage in a depression of the soil, contains from 

 nine to fourteen creamy or reddish-buff eggs. 



The "Eared" or Snow-Pheasants {Crossoptilon) have a vaulted 

 tail with decomposed webs to the long decurved median feathers, 

 fine white ear-tufts, and lax hairy plumage, shorter and curled 

 on the crown. The naked papillose cheeks and the metatarsi 

 are red, with a pair of stout spurs on the latter in the male. C. 

 tibetanum of West China and East Tibet is white, with black 

 crown, dark brown remiges, and greenish- or purplish-black 

 rectrices. C. leucurum of East Tibet has the tail white with 

 blue-black tip, as has C. manchuricum of Manchuria and North 

 China, in which the mantle, nape, and breast are blackish-brown, 

 with a faint white band between the ear-coverts, found also in 

 C. auritum of West China and Koko-Nor, and well defined in C. 

 harmani of Tibet. The last two have the nape, back, and under 

 parts grey-blue. These elegant birds haunt lofty mountain- woods 

 until cold weather comes on ; they are comparatively tame, feed on 

 leaves, shoots, roots, fruit, worms, and insects, and lay at least 

 in the case of C. manchuricum from twelve to sixteen drab 

 eggs. The plumes are worn by Tartar and Chinese warriors. 



Lobiojihasis huhveri of Borneo is a splendid bird with maroon 

 nuchal collar and chest, brown remiges, white tail, and black 

 plumage elsewhere with blue margins to most of the feathers. 

 The stiff spine-pointed rectrices number twenty-eight in the hen 

 and no less than thirty-two in the cock, the w^hole tail being 

 compressed and the median plumes decurved ; in the male the 

 skin of the naked front of the head is blue, as are two caruncles 

 present behind the ears, two smaller processes on the lores, and two 

 wattles at the gape. The rufous, buff, and black female has only 

 the sides of the face bare, with diminutive lateral wattles on the 

 throat. This species skulks in the jungles, and prefers running 

 to flying, having many of the habits of a fowl, though ranging 

 up to two thousand feet ; the eggs are stone-coloured. 



The magnificent Eirebacks (LopMira) have, so far as is known, 

 similar habits to the members of Gennaeus, though they are stronger 

 on the wing, and utter mellower notes in their forest retreats ; 



i 



