280 MRS. R. HAIG THOMAS ON 



Shooting Season 1912-1913. 

 Number of males examined — 294. 



Collar ™ ,. 



absent. Few tips. 



26 47 



Shooting Season 1913-1914. 

 (Christmas shoot omitted.) 

 Number of males examined — 244. 



Collar -rn j.- 



absent. Few U ^- 



15 47 



Collar tji i- 



absent. Fevv ta P s - 



41 94 



making 449 variations of broken collar and the numbers for the 

 recessive "collar absent" (dark-necked pheasant) and those for 

 the " complete ring " nearly equal, suggesting that the latter may 

 be a " mutation recessive." 



Further evidence of the Mendelising of the white collar, collar 

 dominant, dark neck recessive, was found in a cross made in 

 captivity in my pheasantry between P. versicolor, collar absent, 

 and P. formosanus, collar present, where, though the numbers 

 are necessarily small, the same graded forms occur. The reciprocal 

 cross made in 1914 gave the same result. 



Desiring to ascertain whether a complete ringed pheasant had 

 ever been shot in a wild state, I sought information from several 

 persons, all of whom have been most kind in replying to my 

 inquiries. 



Mr. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant, Assistant Keeper of Zoology in the 

 Natural History Museum, states that all the Phasianus torquatus 

 group have the white collar interrupted at the throat, but that males 

 from Northern China — Phasianus kiangsuensis and Phasianus 

 pallasi — have the collar interrupted on the nape and widest on 

 the throat. I am not aware that any P. torquatus of this form 

 has ever been introduced into Britain. 



Mr. J. H. Miller (of the Miller-Carruthers Expedition to 

 Central Asia) stated that he could not be absolutely certain, but 

 was under the impression that he had never seen a complete 

 ring on any of the male pheasants he shot of the variety of the 

 torquatits group named P. mongolicus (a pheasant frequently 

 introduced into English coverts). Mr. Miller generously pre- 

 sented me with a beautiful specimen which he had shot in the 



