142 SOME CHINESE VERTEBRATES. 
us, is within the limit of failure, if one should have a single unusually large 
specimen of one species, or a single unusually small one of the other. 
Scores of pheasants of these two species were shot for food, and Mr. Zappey’s 
notes were based on infinitely more material, than the comparatively small 
series made into skins. Transportation and space had constantly to be con- 
sidered where large birds were concerned. 
We cannot leave this subject without noticing Buturlin’s Distribution of 
the true pheasants (Ibis, July, 1904, ser. 8, 4, 377-414). For the systematic 
part of this very convenient summary we have only praise. This author has 
turned out a piece of work vastly better than that of any of his predecessors, 
and has also clearly shown the number of recognizable races and species into 
which pheasants in a state of undisturbed nature, divide and the very small 
area usually occupied by each. 
. . On points of synonymy however, he is in some cases, entirely in the wrong. 
It would be, we admit, an easy way of avoiding difficulties if when with 
adequate material a wide ranging, variable species is divided into its natural 
subspecies, the names of early authors could be ignored. This high-handed 
practice, however, can not be allowed. Buturlin disregards the fact that 
Gmelin’s name Phasianus torquatus for the collared pheasant of China was 
quite adequate to Gmelin’s time and must stand. P. torquatus torquates must 
be used for some subspecies. We therefore use it for the one of southeastern 
China, to which Buturlin gave the name P. holdereri gmelini:— first, because 
this was apparently the last race left without a name; secondly, because 
Buturlin himself thinks it most probably the one to which Gmelin’s name 
was applied; and thirdly, because it was the form to which David and Oustalet 
restricted the name. 
Equally unpardonable on this author’s part is his treatment of Phasianus 
torquatus pailasi Rothschild. Later when ample material shows that an author 
confused two or more forms under one name it is not customary to discredit the 
earlier authors’ species entirely, but to restrict his name to one of the forms. 
PHASIANUS ELEGANS Elliot. 
Eleven specimens, adults of both sexes and two small chicks, Washan, 
Tachienlu, and Tashanling, western Szechwan, 6,000 to 10,000 feet, summer, and 
autumn. 
A female taken at Kiating in the lowlands of south central Szechwan, 
