JOURNAL 



OF THE 



Bombay Natural History Society, 



June 1916. Vol. XXIV. No. 3. 



THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 



BY 



E. C. Stuart Baker, F.L.S., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



Part XIX. 



With a Coloured Plate. 



Phasiajn'id^. 

 Genus—ITHA GUNJE8. 



The genus Ithagenes is that containing the beautiful birds general- 

 ly known as Blood Pheasants, so called on account of the deep 

 crimson and blood-like splashes with which the breasts of some of 

 the species are marked. 



In the January number of the " Ibis" for 1915, I contributed 

 a note on this geaus, to which there is little to add, but in that note 

 I did not deal with the two siibspecies described as beregoivskii and 

 michaelis or with the so-called species wilsoni. 



The species then recognised were Ithagenes cruentus, I. haseri, I. 

 geoffroyi, I. sinensis and I. tibetanus ; Uregowshii and michaelis are 

 said to be subspecies of sinensis, but there is not sufficient material 

 in English museums to enable one to definitely say whether they 

 should be retained or suppressed. These two subspecies were de- 

 scribed by Bianchi in 1903, the first, beregoivsJcii, from a bird obtained 

 at Kansu. I have seen no species from this place. There is a verj'- 

 fine series of sinensis in the Tring Museum from the Tsin-Lin 

 Mountains which are all very typical birds, and it would seem 

 improbable that another subspecies should be found in Kansu which 

 practically adjoins the South- Western end of the range of the Tsin- 

 Lin Mountains. The second subspecies, michaelis is from Nan- 

 Shan. 



