THE AMHERST PHEASANT. 229 



beautiful. The accompanying engraving, though giving 

 very correctly the general character, necessarily fails in 

 imparting any idea of the coloration of the male. The irides 

 are light, the naked skin of the face is light blue, the 

 feathers of the forehead are green, but the long plumes 

 which form the crest are crimson. The tippet, which is so 

 characteristic a feature of the bird, is white, each feather 

 being margined with a dark green band, and having a 

 second narrow band at some distance from the tip. The 

 front of the neck, the breast, shoulders, back, and wing 

 coverts are of an exquisite metallic green, each feather 

 being tipped with velvety black. The lower part of the 

 breast and belly is white, the thighs and under tail coverts 

 mottled dark brown and white. The feathers of the rump 

 have the exposed parts bright saffron yellow. The tail 

 coverts are brown at the base, striped green and white in 

 the middle, and brilliant scarlet at the ends. The two upper 

 middle tail feathers have a light ground marked so as to 

 resemble lace, with broad transverse bands of green about an 

 inch apart. The other tail feathers have the inner webs 

 mottled black and white, the outer webs with curved green 

 bars, about three-quarters of an inch apart. The bill is pale 

 greenish, and the feet and legs bluish lead colour. The female 

 closely resembles the hen of the last species (T. picta), being 

 a rich chesnut brown, with bars of dark brown, which are 

 broader than those of the Golden Pheasant hen, and the 

 under parts are lighter in colour; moreover, the bare skin 

 of the face is pale blue like that of the male, but much 

 smaller. The size of this species is somewhat larger than 

 that of its close ally, the Golden Pheasant. In the male 

 the adult plumage is not assumed until the autumn of the 

 second year. 



When Mr. Gould gave his description of this pheasant 

 in his " Birds of Asia," the male only was known, and he 

 wrote : " It would give me great pleasure to see a female 

 of this fine bird, and every ornithologist would be truly 



