PHEASANTS. 



427 



southern species of both this is absent, or at best ill-defined. Since it cannot be 

 considered that the individuals with traces of the collar found among the southern 

 species are the results of interbreeding with the northern ringed species, when their 

 ranges are separated by chains of mountains, we must conclude that the original 

 stock were probably of northern origin, and, like those still inhabiting the higher 

 latitudes, possessed a white ring ; that as the species spread gradually southwards 

 this characteristic, from some cause or other, has been lost, but that numerous 

 individuals still show traces of a reversion to the ancestral type. Of the aberrant 

 species we may note the Japanese pheasant (P. versicolor), with the under-parts 

 uniform metallic green, Elliot's pheasant (P. ellioti), from the mountains of South- 

 East China, and Hume's pheasant (P. humecv), from Upper Burma and the Shan 

 Hills. In the two latter the lower back is black barred with white, and there are 

 only sixteen instead of the normal eighteen tail-feathers. Still more different are 

 Soemmerring's pheasant (P. soemmerringi), from Japan, which has the plumage 

 chestnut shot with purplish carmine and fiery gold, and Reeves' pheasant (P. reevesi), 

 from North China, with its white crown, black collar, tawny plumage, and a tail 

 fully 5 feet in length in the oldest males. All the members of the genus are 

 polygamous, each cock pairing with several hens. 



Golden and Undoubtedly the most gorgeously adorned members of the whole 



Amherst's pheasant family are found in the genus which includes the golden 

 Pheasants. an( j Amherst's pheasants (Chrysolophus pictus and C. amherstioe), of 

 the mountains of Eastern Tibet and Western and Southern China. The characters 

 distinguishing the males are the long, full crest of hairy feathers and the cape-like 

 mass of feathers covering the back of the head and neck, as well as the long tail 

 and its greatly lengthened upper-coverts. The male of the species figured, although 

 possessing fewer brilliant colours than the golden pheasant, has the colours purer 

 and more harmonious. The top of the head, mantle, scapulars, and chest are dark 

 bronze-green ; the long crest blood-red ; the feathers forming the cape pure white, 

 margined and barred across the middle with black glossed with steel-blue ; the lower 

 back and rump widely tipped with yellowish buff barred with dark green ; and the 

 long upper tail -co verts white, irregularly barred with black and widely tipped 

 with orange-scarlet. The wings and under tail-coverts are mostly black, with dark 

 purplish green reflections ; the long middle tail-feathers with arched bars and wavy 

 lines of black ; the throat and fore part of the neck brownish black, slightly glossed 

 with green ; and the rest of the under-parts pure white, barred on the flanks with 

 black. Unlike the golden pheasant, both sexes have a patch of naked blue skin 

 surrounding the eye ; but the female has none of the brilliant plumage of the male, 

 the general colour of the upper-parts being rufous and buff, marked and barred, 

 especially on the wings and middle tail-feathers, with dark brown ; the outer tail- 

 feathers being chestnut mixed with black and barred and tipped with white, and 

 the breast and under-parts mostly pale buff, barred on the breast and sides with 

 dark brown. This species has been imported from Western China and Eastern 

 Tibet to Europe, where, being of a hardy nature, it thrives in aviaries. 



The game-fowls inhabit the iuiigles of the Indo-Malayan 

 Game-Fowls, J . . 



countries and many of the adjacent islands; the males differing 



from the other birds of this group in having a high fleshy comb extending along 



