THE JAPANESE PHEASANT. 99 
As the bird has in many cases crossed freely both with the common and the 
Chinese species, it is desirable to give an accurate and detailed description of its 
plumage. For this purpose I shall again have recourse to Mr. Gould’s “Birds of 
Asia,’’ and reproduce his elaborate description of the two sexes. 
“The male has the forehead, crown, and occiput purplish oil green; ear tufts 
glossy green; chin, throat, and sides and back of the neck glossy changeable bluish 
green; back of the neck, breast, and under surface deep shining grass green, with 
shades of purple on the back of the neck and upper part of the breast; feathers 
of the back and scapularies chesnut, with buffy shafts and two narrow lines of buff 
running round each, about equi-distant from each other and the margin; lower part 
of the back and upper tail coverts light glaucous grey; shoulders and wing coverts 
light greenish grey, washed with purple; primaries brown on the internal web, toothed 
with dull white at the base; outer web greyer and irregularly banded with dull white; 
tertiaries brown, freckled with grey, and margined first with greenish grey and then 
‘with reddish chesnut; centre of abdomen and thighs blackish brown; tail glaucous 
grey, slightly fringed with purplish, and with a series of black marks down the centre, 
opposite to each other at the base of the feathers, where they assume a band-like 
form; as they advance towards the tip they gradually become more and more irregular, 
until they are arranged alternately, and in the like manner gradually increase in size; 
on the lateral feathers these marks are much smaller, and on the outer ones are 
entirely wanting, those feathers being covered with freckles of brown; orbits crimson 
red, interspersed with minute tufts of black feathers; eyes, yellowish hazel; bill and 
feet horn colour. 
“Compared with the female of the common pheasant, the hen of the 
present bird has all the markings much stronger, and is altogether of a darker 
colour. She has the whole of the upper surface very dark or blackish brown, each 
feather broadly edged with buff, passing in some of the feathers to a chesnut hue; 
those of the head,.and particularly those of the back, with a small oval deep spot of 
deep glossy green close to the tip; primaries and secondaries light brown, irregularly 
barred with buff, and with buffy shafts; tertiaries dark brown, broadly edged with 
buff on their inner webs, and mottled with dull pale chesnut on the outer web, the 
edge of which is buff; tail dark brown, mottled with buff, and black on the edges, 
-and crossed by narrow irregular bands of buff, bordered on either side with blotches 
of dark brown; on the lateral feathers the lighter edges nearly disappear, and the 
bands assume a more irregular form; throat buff; all the remainder of the under 
surface buff, with a large irregular arrowhead-shaped mark near the top of each 
feather; thigh similar, but with the dark mark nearly obsolete.” 
The habits of the Japanese pheasant in its native country were first 
described by Mr. Heine, the naturalist attached to the American expedition to 
Japan, and the following observations by him were published in Commodore Perry’s 
o 2 
