4 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



The Koklass Pheasants seem to present many difficult problems. The intricate 

 colours and patterns of their plumage, the considerable variation and the wide and 

 irregular distribution, all make toward confusion at first thought. In reality, however, 

 when we eliminate the useless characters and right the errors due to hasty species 

 diagnosis, the genus proves to be one of the most interesting of all the Phasianinae. 

 Its various forms reveal one of the rarest phenomena in nature— a widespread series, 

 showing delicately graduated and increasing complexity within a single, closely related 

 group of living creatures. There seems no room for doubt but that we can trace almost 

 the exact route which these birds have taken in past time, starting in Garhwal in the 

 western Himalayas, and after a long trek northward, eastward and southward, reaching 

 the sea-coast in south-eastern China. 



I recognize the following three species, comprising ten subspecies of Koklass 

 Pheasants. 



Common Koklass Pheasant . 

 Kashmir Koklass Pheasant . 

 Western Koklass Pheasant . 

 Nepal Koklass Pheasant 

 Yellow-necked Koklass Pheasant 

 Orange-collared Koklass Pheasant 

 Meyer's Koklass Pheasant 

 Joret's Koklass Pheasant 

 Darwin's Koklass Pheasant . 

 Styan's Koklass Pheasant 



Pucrasia macrolopha macrolopha (Lesson). 



Pucrasia macrolopha biddulphi Marshall. 



Pucrasia macrolopha castanea Gould. 



Pucrasia macrolopha nipalensis Gould. 



Pucrasia xanthospila xanthospila Gray. 



Pucrasia xanthospila ruficollis David and Oustalet. 



Pucrasia xanthospila meyeri Madarasz. 



Pucrasia xanthospila joretiana Heude. 



Pucrasia darwini darwini Swinhoe. 



Pucrasia darwini styani Grant. 



The character which seems of greatest convenience in the definition of full species 

 in the genus Pucrasia is the mantle pattern, with its increasing complexity (extending 

 also to the other parts of the plumage) in the males. In macrolopha, xanthospila and 

 darwini this pattern may correctly be described as single, double and quadruple 

 respectively. In macrolopha the mantle feathers are cold, ashy grey, with a wide black 

 shaft-stripe extending almost to the tip. Careful examination of the base of the feathers 

 reveals the fact that a white wedge has been driven some distance up the shaft, but 

 this anlage of a splitting of the black stripe is not visible when the feathers are in 

 place. 



In xanthospila and its congeners the central wedge of light colour has spread up 

 the entire vane, and there are two lines of black instead of one. 



In darwini the third and most complex development of the pattern is found. Two 

 additional lateral white wedges have appeared, splitting the two longitudinal black 

 lines into four— the quadruple pattern. Thus the apparent development and route of 

 geographical distribution must have been from macrolopha, through xanthospila to 

 darwini. 



The colour of the outer tail-feathers is unsatisfactory as a diagnostic character, 

 although it is as strongly marked in the females as in the males. While showing 

 great variation in the different species of Pucrasia, these rectrices also present 

 equally wide extremes of colour and pattern within subspecific bounds, as in 

 macrolopha and castanea, where the dominant colour is rufous and dark brown 

 respectively. 



