LOPHOPHORUS 

 IMPEYAN PHEASANTS 



Family PHASIANIDAE 



Subfamily PHASIANINAE 



Genus LOPHOPHORUS 



The Impeyan Pheasants or Monauls are among the most brilliantly iridescent 

 birds in the world. Three species are known, two of which are rather closely related, 

 while the third {sclateri) is somewhat aberrant. In build they are even heavier bodied 

 than the tragopans, their short thick legs giving them an exceedingly ungraceful 

 carriage and an awkward gait. But the marvellous metallic sheen on the upper plumage 

 of the males, running the gamut of bronze, green, blue and violet, eclipses all short- 

 comings. The lower plumage in this sex is usually dull black, while the hens are 

 entirely unlike their mates, being chiefly dark brown, lined and mottled with buff. Both 

 sexes of all three species have crests of sorts, racket-shaped, recurved or of normal 

 feathers. The orbital region is more or less bare. The moult of the tail is truly 

 Phasianine — from the outside inward. 



The bill is remarkably stout and strong, and the upper mandible overlaps the lower, 

 both at the sides and the tip, functioning as a fossorial organ. The wing is rounded, 

 the primary formula from the longest running 5-6-4-3-7-8-2-9- lo-i. The tail of eighteen 

 feathers is of moderate length, and only slightly rounded, the outer pair of rectrices 

 being fully six-sevenths the length of the inner pair. The tail is four-fifths as long as 

 the wing. The tarsus is considerably shorter than the middle toe and claw, and is 

 armed with a short, stout spur in the male. 



The genus of Impeyan Pheasants is essentially of mountainous distribution, 

 extending from the eastern part of Afghanistan throughout the Himalayan range to 

 the central Chinese mountains where the birds range from north-eastern Yunnan, north 

 to Kokonor. 



As we shall see elsewhere, most unfortunate nomenclatural errors have arisen in 

 regard to the specific name of the best-known species of Monaul or Impeyan Pheasant, 

 but with the exception of a few unimportant synonyms the generic name Lophophorus 

 has remained unchallenged. It was first used by Temminck about a hundred years ago 

 in his '' Histoire Naturelle Generale des Pigeons et des Gallinaces." 



Ill 



