HIMALAYAN IMPEYAN PHEASANT 



Lophophorus impeyanus (Latham) 



Names. — Generic : Lophophorus, from the Greek locpoq crest, and -(pogog a form of the stem to bear, hence 

 crest-bearing. Specific : impeyanus after Lady Impey, wife of the first Governor of Bengal. English : Monaul, 

 Moonal or Monal, central Himalayan vernacular ; Impeyan Pheasant. French : Lophophore resplendissant. 

 German: Konigs-Glanzsfasan. Vernacular: Lout [male], Ham [female], Nil-mor, Jungle-mor (Kashmir); Manal, 

 Neel [male], Kururi, Karari [female], (Kullu) ; Moonal [male], Moonalee [female], Gharmonal, Rattia Cowan, 

 Ratual (central Himalayas); Datiya (Kumaon and Garhwal) ; Dafia, Dangan (Nepal); Chamdong (Bhotia) ; 

 Phodong (Sikhim); Chadang (Tibetan). 



Brief Description. — Male : Head, throat and long racket-shaped crest feathers metallic green ; nape and 

 side neck reddish copper; mantle shining golden green ; wings chiefly purplish-blue ; lower back pure white ; 

 under parts dull black; tail rufous-chestnut. Female : Upper parts dull brown with a buff shaft-stripe on crest and 

 longitudinal buff stripes and mottlings on other feathers, becoming regularly concentric brown and buff bare on 

 lower back; lower parts paler, with conspicuous whitish shaft-stripes; throat and half-collar white; tail dark 

 brown barred with rufous. 



TVPE. — " Habitat, in India," Latham, Index Ornithologicus, II. 1790, p. 632. 



Range. — The Himalayas, from Afghanistan to Bhutan. 



THE IMPEYAN PHEASANT IN ITS HAUNTS 



The sight of a wild Impeyan Pheasant amid the lofty forests of its Himalayan 

 home is vouchsafed to but few lovers of birds. Once seen it is never forgotten. Many 

 times had I read over that graphic paragraph : " There are few sights more striking, 

 where birds are concerned, than that of a grand old cock shooting out horizontally from 

 the hill-side just below one, glittering and flashing in the golden sunlight, a gigantic 

 rainbow-tinted gem, and then dropping stone-like, with closed wings, into the abyss 

 below." Or again, in different words but to the same effect : " Looking at a stuffed 

 cock bird in a shop window, or even alive in captivity, is very different from seeing him 

 in his native mountains as he sails away over the blue depths of some wild, rocky gorge, 

 where his loud, whistling cry is echoed and re-echoed among the neighbouring crags and 

 precipices. Then is the time to see his splendid plumage to its best advantage, as the 

 sun glints on the brilliant metallic hues of his neck and the dark purplish blue of his 

 outstretched wings — colours so strangely contrasting with the snow-white patch on 

 his back and the deep orange of his fan-shaped tail, which he always outspreads when 

 in flight." 



I had the good fortune to find Impeyans both in the eastern and the western 

 Himalayas ; in the former region, in early spring, the birds were just entering upon the 

 season of courtship ; in the west, a month or two later, they were already sitting upon 

 their eggs. 



My first view of an Impeyan or Monaul Pheasant formed a perfect antithesis to the 

 vivid picture given above, but it was significant of an ever-present motif in the life of 



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