110 PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE COVERT. 
The first three lots of birds obtained all died before reaching England, with 
the exception of one male, which lived for about three months. The fourth lot was 
obtained in the direction of Syechney, about thirty days’ journey from Hankow, and 
from it seven Reeves’s pheasants were deposited in the Zoological Gardens, 
Regent’s Park. Since that time Mr. Stone has received several others. Mr. 
Medhurst was anxious that Her Majesty the Queen should have early possession 
of specimens of Phasianus reevesii; and in compliance with his wish one male 
and two females were offered to and graciously accepted by Her Majesty. Since 
the successful reintroduction of these birds they have bred freely both in England 
and on the Continent, and are now to be purchased at many of the dealers in 
pheasants. 
With regard to the distribution of this bird in China, Mr, Saurin remarks :— 
“The Reeves’s pheasant, called by the Chinese Ohi-Chi, is very rarely seen in the 
Pekin market. For a long time I failed to discover from what quarter they 
Came... °)- Last winter I ascertained, however, that they came from the Tung-lin; 
and I have reason to suppose that they are to be found nowhere else in the 
province of Chi-li. About twenty birds were brought down alive last winter. They 
are never brought in frozen or by Mongols. ‘Their flesh is very. delicious, and 
superior, to my taste, to that of any other pheasant.” 
The general character of the plumage of the Reeves’s pheasant is well shown 
in the illustration. The head is covered by a cowl of white, surrounded by a band 
of black, with a spot of white under the eye; the neck has a broad ring of white; 
the feathers of the back and upper part of the breast are of a brilliant golden 
yellow, margined with black; those of the lower part of the breast are white, each 
one presenting bands of black more or less irregular in their arrangement; the 
under parts of the body are deep black; the tail is formed of eighteen feathers, 
which are closely folded together, so that the entire tail appears narrow; at the 
broadest part the feathers are about 2in. in breadth; the ground colour of each tail 
feather is greyish-white in the centre, and golden red at the edges, and crossed 
with crescent-shaped bars, which vary in number according to the length of the 
feather, in the longest feathers being considerably more than fifty. 
A very interesting observation was made by the late Mr. Blyth on the voice 
of this species. He states:—“I have heard the call-note of Reeves’s pheasant, and 
it was some time before I could satisfy myself that it actually proceeded from such 
a bird. It is like the simple song of some small passerine bird, delivered in as high 
a key as the song of the hedge sparrow (Accentor modularis), one of which happened 
to be singing at the same time. A repetition of the same note seven or eight 
times over, quite musical but not loud, being as unlike what would be expected 
from such a bird as a pheasant, as the voices of sundry Oolumbide are utterly 
different from what would have been expected to proceed from pigeons and doves.” 
