TEMMINCK'S TRAGOPAN 93 



Tragopans bred in the London Zoo, however, we read that while the nesting facility was 

 an open box fixed above the ground, yet the usual complement was seven or eight eggs. 

 Inaccuracies in other respects in the same account make us rather doubtful of the 

 exactness of the above statements. Ghigi is likewise vague, saying that the birds lay 

 from nine to fifteen eggs, beginning late in March and continuing until May. 



I have dissected two females which died during the breeding season. One had 

 been sitting for a week on two eggs, and in its ovary three other eggs were well 

 developed, far ahead of the general mass. In the other bird, which, earlier in the 

 season, had deposited and vainly incubated two unfertile eggs, five ovarian yolks were 

 largely developed, of which, in turn, two were almost fully formed, and would have been 

 deposited within a few days. 



While one can only theorize, yet all these facts — clear and indisputable (except in 

 regard to the set numbers of those laid in the London and Antwerp Zoological Gardens) 

 — seem to suggest that these birds are in an unstable transition state as regards nesting 

 site, and it would appear at least that the number of eggs is adaptive to the condition 

 of this nesting site. 



One cannot think of these birds in a wild state as utilizing other nests than those 

 of such birds as crows and ravens, and the eggs of the Tragopan would be considerably 

 larger than the eggs of the original owners of the nests, so that more than two would be 

 unsafe, if not impossible to incubate. But if, as would seem to be the case, these 

 Tragopans nest at times on the ground, there we can see the advantage of a larger 

 number of eggs — four to six being none too numerous for the parent to incubate and 

 to meet the added dangers of terrestrial nidification. When we know how such birds 

 as our flicker or yellow-shafted woodpecker can be made to increase a normal setting 

 of about seven eggs to a consecutive depositing of six or even ten times this number, 

 the stimulus being merely the daily removal of each ^gg as it is laid, we can readily 

 appreciate the physical possibility of such adaptation as I have suggested in the case of 

 the Tragopan. Certainly the first female which I dissected had begun incubation, with 

 two well-advanced eggs still undeposited. 



In my experience with the Temminck's Tragopan in captivity I have never seen 

 the hen do more than pick up bits of twigs, as well as leaves and straw, and fly up 

 to the half box in which she arranged them in the form of a rough nest, a structure 

 without cohesion, so that, if lifted up, it would have fallen to pieces at once. Mr. W. P. 

 Ryder tells me that a hen in his possession once built a very fair nest in a cedar, five 

 feet from the ground, without extraneous foundation, one which held together for 

 five days of incubation upon a single ^gg, the hen then deserting and failing to lay 

 again. Incomplete though this is, it is worthy of note as showing that the nest-building 

 instinct, in the case of some Tragopans, has advanced somewhat beyond the parasitical 

 adoption of another bird's nest. 



The eggs of this Tragopan are of a rather rounded oval and have very little gloss. 

 The set of six collected by A. E. Pratt in China are of a pinkish cream-colour, closely 

 speckled over the entire surface with dark reddish-brown. Several laid in captivity 

 have a ground colour of rufous-buff, thickly speckled with dull rufous-brown. In length 

 they vary from 51 to 57 mm., and in breadth from 37 to 42 mm. 



The period of incubation is variously given as twenty-six to twenty-seven days, and 



