304 Zoological N. Y. Zoological Society. [I; 17 



less striving to make every fact, every color, every hybrid, every 

 tropism, fit some pet theory. There would be less arbitrary 

 refutation, more leniency in perceiving the modicum of truth 

 which may lie at the bottom of the most unpromising theory. 

 This is the principal thought which the study of the family of 

 pheasants has aroused ; the realization of the plexus of factors 

 dominating or indirectly affecting the evolution of the race and 

 the development of the individual. 



Part II. 



The name Euplocomus was established by Temminck eighty- 

 four years ago (1830), and has been, expanded and maintained 

 by many excellent authorities since that date. Today it is gen- 

 erally admitted to be a compound group and has been divided 

 into as many as five genera. These are Gennaeus, Hierophasis, 

 Diar dig alius, Lophura and Acomus. Any careful study of the 

 comparative claims of this quintet to full recognition, empha- 

 sizes most profoundly the wholly artificial character of any 

 linear classification, and although the discussion of this is not 

 the main thesis of the paper, yet it is interesting to consider it 

 briefly; especially as I wish to illustrate the thought presented 

 in Part I. 



In recent years there has been a redundancy of discussion 

 as to whether species owe more to continuous or to discontinuous 

 variation, a better term for the latter being saltation. For 

 several reasons I purposely avoid using the term mutation in 

 this brief paper. When I began my studies of the pheasants 

 I was consciously or subconsciously prejudiced against the 

 "mutation theory," chiefly perhaps because it appeared that 

 altogether too much was claimed for it, and if the most con- 

 vincing proof of any given mutation required several genera- 

 tions, there was slight chance of demonstrating it among birds 

 save in a few isolated, favorable instances. But the more I 

 observed such species as the Golden and Amherst Pheasants 

 (Chrysolophus pictus and amheistiae) , the color relations in 

 both sexes, and the results of hybridism, the more necessary 

 some such phenomenon as saltation appeared to be, in these 

 particular instances. That saltations occur in this family I 

 consider satisfactorily proved by the Black-throated Golden 



