CHAPTER XIV. 



PHEASANTS ADAPTED TO THE COVERT 

 (CONTINUED). 



EEEVES^S PHEASANT [PHASIANUS 

 REEVE 8 11). 



ARCO POLO, the old Venetian traveller, who 

 returned to Venice in 1298, after a residence 

 of seventeen years in Tartary, was evidently 

 \ acquainted with the magnificent species now known 

 as Reeves's Pheasant. In the language of his original 

 translator, whose quaint orthography I have followed, 

 he is made to state : *' There be plenty of Feysants and very 

 greate, for 1 of them is as big as 2 of ours, with tayles of 

 eight, 9 and tenne spannes long, from the Kingdom of 

 Erguyl or Arguill, the W. side of Tartary. ^^ This descrip- 

 tion can only be applicable to the species now under con- 

 sideration. From this time, until described by Latham and 

 Temminck, this bird was comparatively unknown, except 

 from the inspection of Chinese drawings. Sonnini, who 

 preceded Temminck, concludes his account by stating that it 

 is very possible that the bird, of which he had merely seen 

 pictures, '' exists only in the imagination of the Chinese 

 painters." 



Singularly enough, the species was, for thirteen years — 

 namely, 1808 to 1821 — living in the aviary of Mr. Beale, at 

 Macao. Dr. Bennett, in his "Wanderings in New South 

 Wales," states : " In Mr. Beale's splendid aviary and garden 



