2^2 



CASSELL'S BOOK OF BIRDS. 



The countries of Assam, Silhet, Arucan, and Tenasserim, as far as Mergui, may be regarded as 

 the habitat of this species, which received from Linnseus, wlio erroneously believed Thibet to be 

 its native country, the name of the Thibet Peacock ; and even now we are but little acquainted with 

 its habits, owing to its shy disposition, and the preference it has for the innermost recesses of dense 

 forests. In " Ornithognomon's " "Game Birds of India" is one of the most interesting of the few notices 

 we possess. "I have never," says the writer, "shot this bird; and, indeed, only once came upon it 



THE CHINQUIS, OR ASSAM PEACOCK PHEASANT [Polyplectroit chinquis). 



This was in a narrow path leading along a ridge about 3,000 feet above the sea, in the mountains on 

 the British side of the Thoungyen River, which separates Tenasserim from Yohan in Siam. It started 

 so suddenly, having apparently been dusting itself in the path, and shot so rapidly across the jungle, 

 through the ktid, that had it not left two or three of its feathers behind I should not have known 

 what bird I had flushed. I am not aware of any English sportsman having ever bagged one of these 

 Pheasants ; and, indeed, it frequents such inaccessible places as effectually to defy approach. The 

 mountains in the tropics rise to a height of six or eight thousand feet above the sea, and from 6,000 

 feet downwards are clothed with such a dense mass of trees, thickets, underwood, bamboos, and 

 thorny rattans, all bound together by creepers and tangle, that it would be an hour's labour to cut 



