70 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



The form of the birds is much the same in all, and the sexes are very unlike. The 

 chief characters of the males are brilliant metallic colouring, coppers, greens and purples 

 a bare, red facial area, feathery ear-tufts rising from the sides of the crown, a long, 

 tapering tail, and the lower back and rump with disintegrated fringes of such length 

 that these parts appear hairy, without cohesive webs. Spurs are present. The females 

 are dull in hue, various browns and buffs, marked with darker tints. There are eighteen 

 tail-feathers, so graduated that the inner pair is usually three or even four times the 

 length of the outer ones. The ist primary is about equal to the 8th and considerably 

 longer than the loth. 



The genus has usually been considered to include more than the typical birds I 

 have described. Indeed, Linnaeus made it equal almost to the entire family. Authors 

 have gradually shorn it, first of one, then another, well-marked group. 



Consistently applying my criterion of genera — that of geographic non-overlapping — 

 I have removed the genera Synnaticus and Calophasis, including the Reeves, Copper, 

 Elliot and Bar-tailed birds, from Phasianus, and thereby cleared the situation of the 

 difficult condition of several species of the same genus found in the same locality. As I 

 have said elsewhere, this is not put forth as any widespread, fundamental law, but, like 

 my subfamily classification by tail moult, it appears to apply logically to the group of 

 birds under consideration. 



Phasianus is thus left as an exceedingly homogeneous group, with the loose-fringed, 

 hair-like feathers of the lower back and rump as an important distinguishing character. 

 Correlated with this simplicity of structure we find a wider distribution than exists in 

 any other phasianine genus. 



I have devoted much time to the plan of classification of this genus, and have 

 successively put myself in the frame of mind of the "lumper" and the "splitter" of 

 taxonomic forms. Besides careful comparison of the numerous types of Phasianus in 

 my own and museum collections, and study of their environment, distribution and 

 barriers, the facts resulting from two very different lines of experience have done much 

 in compelling my ultimate decision. First, the results of a single day's shooting in 

 various parts of China, often resulting in the securing of several birds from a single 

 covey. Out of four brace of pheasants thus killed on the middle Yangtse, well within a 

 region of ring-necked birds, were individuals with a broad white neck ring, a narrow 

 interrupted ring, and a third showing a few irregular white feathers on the right side. 

 The coloration of the wing-coverts was correlated with the ring or ringless condition, 

 being much whiter in the first-mentioned case. A variation in rump colouring in 

 another bird would have been of full subspecific value if it had been killed in an isolated 

 region, unassociated with its fellows. These birds were fully adult and in freshly 

 moulted plumage. Yet within the space of two rice-fields of moderate size, and in 

 a single morning, I had shot three recognizable forms or " subspecies," and two 

 undescribed ones. Many correspondents have told of similar experiences. 



The second array of facts is derived from the conditions found among semi-wild 

 hybrids introduced into foreign countries. One example, out of many, must suffice. 

 At Tring, England, Lord Rothschild turned down pheasants for shooting with varying 

 amounts of colchicus, forquatus, and even versicolor blood. Later a strain of pallasi 

 blood was introduced, and from this melange de sang there arose pheasants which were 



