55 



CHAPTER IV. 



Reeves's pheasants — Golden pheasants — Silver pheasants — 

 Blue pigeons — Stabbed-breast pigeons — Widow birds — The 

 horned Tragopan — The mandarin teal — Conjugal fidelity — 

 Nicobar pigeons — Peacock pheasants — Pink cockatoo— The 

 Ounderou monkey — A Pitta — Mr. Beale's gardens — 

 Rare productions of the vegetable kingdom — Native draw- 

 ings — Extortionate custom. 



In the aviary, the beautiful Phasianus vene- 

 rahis of Temminck ; the P. Reevesii of Gray, 

 now commonly known by the name of Reeves's 

 Pheasant, was seen : it is the Chee Kai* of the 

 Chinese . The longest of the beautiful tail feathers 

 of this bird are six feet in length, and are placed 

 in the caps of the players, when acting military 

 characters : this I observed at Canton, where some 

 of the beautiful tail feathers (rather in a dirty 

 condition, like the actors themselves, who, in 

 their tawdry and dirty dresses, remind one of 



* Kai usually expresses any birds of the gallinaceous tribe. 



