ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



WINTER HOME OK THE NEPAL HIMALAYAN BLOOD PARTRIDGE 



spruces defy the elements, rearing their sturdy pnarled trunks 



Between their trunks extend dense masses of stunted rhodode 



these the blood partridges spend the lone winter days. 



Plate from Beebe's "Monograph of the Pheasants" 



the millions rather than the scientific few. 

 Briefly summarized, the Introduction includes a 

 real introduction, then a "Brief General Ac- 

 count." a table and a diagram to show genera 

 and relationships, a "Key to the Genera," a gen- 

 eral map of distribution, a diagram of Regions. 

 "Flight and Gait," "Food," "Roosts." "Friends 

 and Enemies." "Voice," "Protective Coloring." 

 "Home Life," nests, eggs, and lastly "Relation 

 to Man." 



It is because of such presentations as this 

 that we place this monograph in a class by itself 

 and call it a matchless model of bird exploita- 

 tion. 



In the body of the work, each species is not 

 fenced off at its beginning by a formidable 

 barbed-wire entanglement of synonyms hung 

 with grinning skeletons from the past. ' It is a 

 common thing for zoological species to be ush- 

 ered in by long lists of dead and utterly worth- 

 less names and references that are both useless 

 and repulsive. By Mr. Beebe the few synonyms 

 that are really necessary have been placed at 

 the end of each species chapter, instead of at 



the beginning, as the custom long has been. For 

 this sensible innovation the reader registers 

 profound gratitude, and then plunges in medias 

 res. 



This first volume of the projected four shows 

 that between a monograph written in a study, 

 from dry skins, and one based on first-hand ob- 

 servations made with the camera and gun in the 

 haunts of the living birds, there is a world of 

 difference. Regardless of time, labor and dan- 

 ger. Mr. Beebe sought out all the important 

 pheasant species of India, Borneo, Java and 

 China in their homes and haunts. He photo- 

 graphed their mountains and jungles, their nests, 

 their favorite rocks, trees and bushes. He col- 

 lected liberally of their eggs, young, adults, and 

 food supplies. He learned a thousand things 

 about pheasants that never before had been ob- 

 served and recorded and he solved many pheas- 

 ant mysteries. 



Ever looking with the eyes of an evolution- 

 ist and a diligent student of avian life histories, 

 Mr. Beebe discovered how local and geographic 

 groups have developed varieties that have led. in 



