Kalij and Koklass Pheasants 309 



grains, roots, and insects, and is not highly esteemed as food. The other species 

 appear not greatly different in habits so far as these are known, but they are 

 mostly quite scarce, one species being represented by only a single skin. 



Kalij Pheasants. Inhabiting the Himalayas and the Indo-Chinese coun- 

 tries, but at much lower elevations than the last, is a large genus (Gennaus} 

 of some sixteen species, a part of which are known as Kalij Pheasants, and the 

 remainder, which exhibit a peculiar vermiculated upper plumage, as Silver Pheas- 

 ants. They have a long, compressed, and vaulted tail of sixteen feathers, the 

 middle ones long and drooping like the domestic cock ; and both the sexes have 

 the crest composed of soft, narrow feathers, which are some three inches long 

 in the males and little shorter in the females. The male has a large portion of 

 the sides of the head naked, and is armed with a single strong spur on each leg. 

 Of the four or five species belonging to the first group we may select for brief 

 mention the White-crested Kalij (G. albicristatus) of the western Himalayas and 

 Nepal. About twenty-five inches in length, the male has the upper plumage 

 mainly black, glossed with purplish and steel-blue, the feathers of the mantle, 

 back, and rump being more or less margined with white, while the long, hairy 

 crest is white, the chin and throat black, and the lower parts brownish white; 

 the female is two inches shorter and has the whole plumage reddish brown. 

 This fine Pheasant is most abundant in the lower regions, frequenting especially 

 the foot-hills and lower valleys up to an elevation of about 8000 feet, and occurring 

 in almost every variety of situation, such as low coppice and wooded jungle, 

 ravines, and borders of the denser forests. "The call of the bird," says Captain 

 Baldwin, "which may be heard at all times of the day, is a sharp twut, twut, twut, 

 sometimes very low, with a long pause between each note, then suddenly increas- 

 ing loudly and excitedly." They also produce a peculiar sound during the breed- 

 ing season by flapping the wings against the body, apparently much as our 

 Ruffed Grouse drums, but its object appears to be a challenge to a rival male, 

 for they are very pugnacious at this time, and engage in fierce, often fatal battles. 

 This sound may be closely imitated and is often resorted to for the purpose of 

 securing them. They nest throughout their range, depositing the nine to four- 

 teen reddish buff eggs in a simple hollow scratched in the ground under some 

 stone, bush, or tuft of long grass. Perhaps the most beautiful member of the 

 second group is the Silver Pheasant (G. nycthemerus] of southern China, the 

 male of which has the crest and under parts black glossed with purple, and 

 the upper parts white, most of the feathers with five or six narrow, black, 

 concentric lines; its total length is forty inches, while the female is but half 

 this length and mostly olive-brown finely mottled with dusky lines. Although 

 a common bird in aviaries it is said to be very rare in a wild state and but little 

 is known of its habits. 



The Koklass Pheasants (Pucrasia), the seven species of which range through- 

 out the Himalayas from Afghanistan to Tibet and Manchuria, are peculiar 

 birds, easily distinguished by the absence of naked skin on the sides of the head, 

 and a very remarkable crest of narrow, soft feathers, the outer ones, or those 

 behind the ear-coverts, being fully twice the length of the central ones, while 



