318 BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 



great speed, and takes wing unwillingly. At the breeding-season the 

 male makes a curious drumming sound with its wings, a sort of challenge, 

 I imagine, to other cocks. The breeding-season commences in March, 

 and is over by the end of April. The nest is merely a hollow in the ground 

 under a shrub or at the foot of a tree, lined with a few dead leaves. The 

 eggs, which are seldom more than seven in number, are of a pale buff 

 colour. 



675. EUPLOCAMUS CUVIERL 



THE ARRAKAN SILVER PHEASANT. 



Lophophorus cuvieri, Temm. PI. Col i. ; Hume, 8. F. iii. p. 106, note. Nycthe- 

 merus cuvieri, SI. JB. Burm. p, 149. Euplocaxnus cuvieri, Oates, S. F. iii. 

 p. 343 ; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 110; Hume fy Marsh. Game Birds, i. p. 201, pi. ; 

 Sanderson, S. F. viii. p. 493. 



Description. Male. Like the male of E. lineatus, but with no white 

 streaks on the lower plumage; the breast is strongly tinged with deep 

 blue ; a tinge of blue runs all through the upper plumage ; and the feathers 

 of the rump and upper tail-coverts have broad white margins ; the vermi- 

 culations on the upper plumage are not so frequent nor so white; and there 

 is much less white on the tail. 



The female is also like the female of E. lineatus in general appearance, 

 but differs in some important particulars. All the feathers of the upper 

 plumage are conspicuously margined paler ; and there are no white streaks 

 on the sides of the neck and hind neck ; the tail is dark chestnut, the four 

 or five outer pairs of feathers without any marks whatever, the others 

 vermiculated with black. The colour of the lower plumage is much duller, 

 and the white streaks are inconspicuous and infrequent. 



Length 25 inches, tail ITS, wing 9'3 3 tarsus 3'4, bill from gape 1-6. 

 The female has the wing 8'5 inches, the tail 8'8, the tarsus 2*8, the bill 

 from gape 1'5. 



E. horsfieldi, which is likely to occur in Arrakan, has the whole plumage 

 glossy bluish black, only the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts 

 being conspicuously margined with white. The female bears a considerable 

 resemblance to those of E. lineatus and E. cuvieri, but has no white streaks 

 on the lower plumage, the shafts alone being paler. The tail, with the 

 exception of the central feathers, is black. 



The Arrakan Silver Pheasant occurs over the whole of the Arrakan hills, 

 extending, I think, quite down to the Irrawaddy river ; but I have never 

 myself procured a specimen nearer to that river than fifteen miles, at a 

 place named Nyoungyeedouk, on the road leading from Prome to Tong- 



