TRAGOPAN 



HORNED TRAGOPANS 



FAMILY PHASIANIDAE 

 Subfamily PERDICINAE 

 Genus TRAGOPAN 



The Horned Tragopans or Satyr Pheasants form a compact genus of five distinct 

 species. They are large, heavily built birds, and the sexes are very unlike in colour. 

 Both are extremely beautiful, the females of various shades of brown with harmonious 

 mottlings of black and buff, while in the males the predominating hues are red, brown, 

 and black, extensively spotted with white or grey. The cocks have short crests, two 

 fleshy horns, and a large, brilliantly coloured, bib-like throat wattle or lappet. These 

 dermal ornaments reach their greatest development at the breeding season. The cheeks 

 and throat of the males are bare or covered only thinly with feathers. 



The bill is short and stout. In the rounded wing, the ist primary is shorter than 

 the loth, and much shorter than the 2nd ; the 4th or 5th is slightly the longest. The 

 tail of eighteen feathers is quite long and wedge-shaped, the outer pair of rectrices 

 being about two-thirds the length of the central ones. The tail is a trifle over six- 

 sevenths the length of the wing. Its moult takes place from the centre outward. The 

 tarsus is about equal to the middle toe and claw, and in the male is armed with a short, 

 stout spur. 



This genus extends from Kashmir on the west, along the Himalayan Range into 

 central China, where we find it on the higher mountains within the area bounded by 

 Shensi on the north, Fokien on the east, and Kwangsi and Yunnan to the south. 



To the single species of Tragopan which was known to Linnaeus in 1766, he 

 applied the generic term of Meleagris, and M. Lesson, over sixty years later, was 

 scarcely less happy in the choice of Satyra. For, while eminently appropriate 

 etymologically, the term had long been used by entomologists, thus rendering it 

 unavailable as a generic name. Cuvier, one year later, in 1829, in the first volume of 

 his classic R^gne Animale, made use of the word Tragopan, and any one who has seen 

 these birds in the act of courtship, or listened to their weird cries among their mountain 

 haunts, will appreciate its unusual aptness ; they are indeed veritable "goats of the good 



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