CHAPTER XXIII. 



PHEASANTS ADAPTED TO THE AVIARY 

 (CONTINUED). 



THE AEGUS PHEASANT (ARGUS 

 GIGANTEU8). 



HE Argus Pheasant, as it was termed by Linnaeus, is 

 undoubtedly one of the most magnificent of the 

 family of pheasants. Its native haunts are the 

 forests of Malacca and Siam, the Malay Peninsula, 

 and Southern Tenasserim ; it is also found in Sumatra, 

 It is so extremely shy in its habits that it is rarely, if 

 ever, shot, even by native hunters, who nevertheless manage 

 to secure numbers by snaring the birds. 



Dr. A. R. Wallace, in his most interesting work on the 

 Malay Archipelago, describes his journey into the heart of 

 the Argus country, and writing of Mount Ophir, fifty miles- 

 eastward of Malacca, states : 



" The place where we first encamped, at the foot of the 

 mountain, being very gloomy, we chose another in a kind 

 of swamp, near a stream overgrown with zingiberaceous 

 plants, in which a clearing was easily made. Here our men 

 built two little huts without sides, that would just shelter us 

 from the rain, and we lived in them for a week, shooting and 

 insect-hunting, and roaming about the forest at the foot of 

 the mountain. This was the country of the great Argus 

 Pheasant, and we continually heard its cry. On asking the 

 old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he told me that, 

 though he had been twenty years shooting birds in these 



