128 PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE AVIARY. 
The male, without possessing the gorgeous coloration of many species of the 
group, is a very beautiful bird. The face is entirely covered with a bright vermilion 
skin, which during the spring becomes excessively brilliant, and is greatly increased 
in size, so as to almost resemble the comb and wattles of a cock; the flowing crest 
is blue-black, the bill light green. The upper part of the body is white, pencilled 
with the most delicate tracery of black. The whole of the under parts are bluish- 
black, the legs and feet red, the spurs well developed and usually very sharp. The 
female is smaller than the male; her general colour is brown, mottled with a 
darker tint; the crest and tail are much less ample than those of the cock; the 
outer tail feathers are light, marked with black on the outer webs. The female in 
confinement usually lays from eight to fourteen eggs, and the young are most 
easily reared under a common fowl. 
The genus Huplocamus, to which the Silver Pheasant belongs, includes several 
species. They are distinguished from the true pheasants by the crest, by the more 
fowl-like form of the tail, and by the males, and sometimes even the females, 
being strongly and sharply spurred. The common species, the kaleege of India, 
breed very freely, even in confinement, but are not adapted for turning into the 
covert, as they rise with difficulty, and their flesh is not equal for culinary purposes 
to that of the ordinary pheasant. A correspondent writes:—‘“I have been shooting 
lately in preserves where, amongst other game, I had the pleasure of seeing the 
kaleege on the wing. The birds had been bred under hens from eggs taken from 
old birds in a mew, treated in the same manner as pheasants, and were at this 
time—the last week in December—practically as wild as the pheasants in the same 
covert. A more unsporting-looking bird on the wing I never met with, or a more 
unsatisfactory one to knock down. Its flight is low, never rising more than eight 
or ten feet from the ground, and therefore in a line with everybody’s head, conse- 
quently a most dangerous bird in a battue. Its flight is more like that of a coot 
or moorhen than any bird I know; the slow, noiseless flight, and the dark plumage, 
making it very like the former bird. It runs much before rising—is very savage, 
driving away the other game birds, and is the most unsatisfactory game bird I ever 
saw. My friend with whom I was shooting is therefore killing them down.” 
Twelve different species of kaleege have at various: times been shown in the 
Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park. Of these the greater number have bred either 
with their own species, or have produced hybrids with other Huplocami. Amongst 
those that breed the most freely may be mentioned Swinhoe’s pheasant (LH. swinhoit), 
the purple kaleege (#. horsfeldi), the black-backed kaleege (H. melanotis), and the 
white-crested (H. albo-cristatus). The different species of Huplocami hybridise 
together even in a wild state, and there is no difficulty in rearing a very large 
series of hybrids in captivity. 
—— i £ GSR OS 2 3 ——_—$—<—— - 
