100 PJ1ASIANID.E. 



Young birds of both sexes resemble females, but have distinct 

 buff shaft-stripes above and below. The adult male plumage is 

 gradually assumed, the feathers round the neck becoming red, and 

 the pale shaft-spots changing to ocelli before the crimson garb is 

 acquired by moult. 



Bill of male blackish brown, horns bright lazuline blue, orbits 

 and uppar throat fine purplish blue, irides deep brown, legs and 

 toes pale fleshy ; bill of female dusky horny, legs brownish grey, 

 more or less fleshy (Hums). The gular apron-like wattle can be 

 expanded during the breeding-season to a length of several inches ; 

 it is usually blue with lateral bars, which, under excitement, become 

 orange or scarlet ; but it is described by Hume as orange with 

 lateral blue bars, and it probably varies in colour. The horns are 

 larger in the breeding-season, and measure at times over 3 inches 

 in length. 



Length of male about 27 ; tail 10-5; wing 10-5: tarsus 3*25 ; 

 bill from gape 1*5. Length of female about 23 ; tail 8 ; wing 9. 



.Distribution. Throughout the Himalayas from the AUknanda 

 valley in Garhwal to well into Bhutan, and perhaps somewhat 

 farther east, between about 6000 and 12,000 feet ; in summer 

 chiefly from 8000 to 10,000 feet. This Pheasant was formerly 

 not rare near Dnrjiling. 



Habits, tyc. This is a thorough forest-bird, shy, and rarely seen, 

 keeping to thick cover, and often found in " ringal," the small 

 upland bamboo that covers the hill-sides in many parts of the 

 Himalayas. The call, described by Jerdon as a deep bellowing, 

 and by Hume as a loud bleating cry, is chiefly heard in spring. 

 At this time the males show off by raising their horns and 

 expanding their wattles, and in other wavs, as described by 

 Mr. Bartlett in Dr. Murie's paper (/. c.). The eggs, laid in May, 

 are like large hen's eggs, nearly white, slightly freckled here and 

 there with pale dull lilac, and measuring about 2-6 by 1*8. 



T. temmineld, Gray, the Chinese Crimson Horned Pheasant, is 

 found in South-western and Central China, and a specimen in the 

 Hume Collection is said to have been brought from the Mishmi 

 hills, just beyond the frontier of E. Assam (S. F. viii, p. 201 ; ix, 

 pp. 198, 205). The male resembles that sex of T. satyra, but 

 differs (1) in having the pale spots 011 the lower surface larger, 

 pearly grey in colour throughout, and without black edges, and (2) 

 in each feather of the back and of most of the upper parts being 

 dark red at the end, with a small subterminal grey ocellus ; the 

 red of the neck, too, is less rich and paler towards the head. The 

 female is very similar to that of T. satyra. 



1345. Tragopan melanocephalns. The Western Horned Pheasant. 



Phasianus melanocephalus, Gray, Griffith's An. Kingd. } Aves, iii, p. 29 



(1829). 

 Ceriornis melanocphala, Bli/th, Cat. p. 240 ; Ac/ams, P. Z. S. 1858, 



p. 498 : 1859 p. 185 ; Jerdon, B. I. iii, p. 517 ; Stoliczka, J. A, S. B. 



