LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURES xiii 



Photogravure 46. HAUNTS OF THE TURKESTAN MONGOLIAN PHEASANT 



OR SYR-DARIA RING-NECK .... Facing page 100 

 Photographs by Dwight Huntington. 



Over the great, but little known region of Turkestan known as Syr-Daria, with its rugged 

 gorges and snow-capped mountains, its scattered villages, fields of grain and herds of goats, the 

 most western of all the Ring-necks is found. 



It drinks at tiny meandering streams, which in spring become raging torrents, it gleans 

 from the grain in autumn or scratches in the frozen ground in winter. Among the wind-blown 

 sturdy shrubs or the long waving reeds it roosts at night, ever seeking to avoid the hosts of 

 enemies which threaten it on every side. 



Photogravure 47. MONGOLIAN PHEASANT ..... Facing page 104 



ZARAFSHAN PHEASANT 

 TARIM PHEASANT 



Photographs by Douglas Carruthers. 



The wildest and bleakest river basins of central Asia are inhabited by pheasants. Now 

 and then a ragged caravan passes, hastening across the deserts, from one source of water supply 

 to the next, a line of camels bearing tea or grain. When the rivers are in flood and spread 

 out across the deserts, the birds wander far, and roost at night among the ruins of half-buried 

 and wholly forgotten cities. Rarely an explorer makes his way through, mapping the valleys, 

 shooting a few specimens, and passing on forever. 



Photogravure 48. YUNNAN BLACK-NECKED OR STONE'S PHEASANT 



Photographs by William Beebe. Facing page 108 



This is the only member of the entire genus which occurs within the boundaries of British 

 India. In Yunnan the bird is found in the same general environment as the silver kaleege 

 pheasants. A hunter I knew drove a cock bird out of cover into a ploughed field, and a golden 

 eagle made a swoop at it but missed. 



Stone's Pheasant roams over the wooded heights of the maze of mountains along the 

 Burma-Chinese frontier, and finds its food by scratching among the dead leaves and ferns of 

 the forest undergrowth. 



Photogravure 49. RING-NECKED PHEASANTS IN EASTERN CHINA 



Photographs by William Beebe. Facing page 1 1 8 



The pheasants of north-eastern China come down once a day to the rivers or creeks to 

 drink, and then make their way back to the rolling grassy slopes where they nest and roost. 



There were two nests of Ring-necked Pheasants in the grassy tangle foreground of the 

 central photograph. 



A full-grown cock pheasant is hidden in the centre of the lower photograph, the beak, 

 white collar, back and upward-pointing tail feathers distinguishable. Although so brilliantly 

 coloured, yet when partially hidden by the grass its patterns and hues merged perfectly with 

 the lights and shadows of the vegetation. The bird did not flush until approached within a 

 few yards, when it rose with a roar of wings, shot almost straight upward for thirty feet, and 

 then off along the hill in the central photograph. Two hens were sitting on eggs close by. 



Photogravure 50. THE BLEAK LAND OF CHILI, NORTH-EAST CHINA, 



HOME OF THE RING-NECKED PHEASANT . Facing page 124 



Photographs by William Beebe. 



The common Ring-necks inhabit three general types of country, dense reeds, along river 

 banks, low rolling hills covered with scrub oak, chestnut and pine, or dense grass growing in 

 irregular patches, and the flat paddy-fields. 



Double broods are sometimes reared, the great majority of the chicks falling victims to 

 rats, civet cats, foxes and weasels. 



