Distribution of the True Pheasants. 389 



p. 477 (pt.) ; 1903, Dresser, Manual, p. GGO (pt.) ; 1903, 

 Zarudny, Birds of Eastern Persia (Russ.), in Mem. Geogr. 

 gen. I. Ryss. G. Soc. xxxvi. 2, p. 76 (Heri-rud). 



Ph. komarowi inhabits the Tejend (Heri-rud) basin and 

 the rivulets that flow from the slopes of the Darah-Gaz and 

 Kalat-i-Nadir to the plains of Tejend : Dushak, Kaahka, and 

 Lutfabad. In 1898 Mr. Zarudny found it numerous enough 

 on the Heri-rud, between Pash-Robat and Kafir-Kala, but 

 it has not yet been traced further to the south-east. In 

 Ahal-Teke it is now exterminated, and ranges west only to 

 Baba-Durmas, some 75 kilom. east from Askhabad by rail. 

 Its range is bordered by the Kara-Kum sands to the north, 

 by the water-parting of the Caspian and Inland basins to the 

 west, south-west, and south ; by the Paropamisus to the 

 north-east, and by a narrow belt of waterless plains to the 

 east, where the nearly allied, but on the whole distinguishable, 

 Ph. principalis t//picus has its home. 



The Tejend Pheasant was discovered in 1883 by the 

 indefatigable traveller Zarudny, to whom the political storms 

 then prevailing in the Turcoman country were no drawback 

 to scientific work ; but the notes which he sent with the skin 

 to the late Prof. Bogdanow were not published till 1886. 

 Meanwhile Mr. Sclater had described in 1885 the nearly allied 

 Murghab bird, Ph. principalis, which was incorrectly identi- 

 fied with Mr. Zarudny's Askhabad Pheasant. They are very 

 much alike, it is true, but the western (Askhabad-Tejend) 

 form is quite recognisable (as Mr. Zarudny himself afterwards 

 allowed) by the greenish gloss of the black flank-spots, 

 which is not seen in Murghab birds (I have studied some 

 dozen of these last), if they are examined, as is my usual custom, 

 with the head to the light and between the observer and the 

 light. This feature was noted in Prof. Bogdanow's diagnosis 

 (" plumis singulis in corporis lateribus aurantiacis, fascia lata 

 terminali viridi-nigra ornatis"). This difference between 

 greenish- and purple-blue gloss is certainly not striking, but 

 still I consider that recognisably different birds should bear 

 different names, and I think that Bogdanow's name "koma- 

 rowi" should be used for the Tejend bird, though Mr. Zarudny 

 himself in 1885 (cf, supra) wrongly identified Sewertzow's 



