TALISCH CAUCASIAN PHEASANT 



Phasianus colchicus talischensis Lorenz 



Names. — Subspecific : talischensis^ after Talisch, the Russian district inhabited by this bird. English : 

 Talisch Pheasant. 



Type. — Locality : Talisch. Describer : Th. C. Lorenz. Place of Description : Journal fiir Ornithologie, 

 1888, p. 572. 



Subspecific Characters. — Middle of breast and sides of abdomen are purplish carmine, and chest and 

 upper breast are narrowly margined with purple ; breast feathers more pointed and their black margins narrower 

 than in the other related forms. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



This is a bird of the lowlands of the south-western shore of the Caspian Sea. Its 

 range includes the Russian district of Talisch and the Persian provinces of Ghilan and 

 most of Mazanderan. On the north the Talisch Pheasant grades into colchicus, while in 

 the south-eastern part of its range it comes very close to the Persian Pheasant [persicus). 

 In its subspecific characters it approaches this latter pheasant, but is worthy of a definite 

 place with the red-rumped Caucasian group on account of its consistently sandy-brown 

 wing coverts. 



Writing of Northern Persia, Buxton tells us that "this race of the pheasant is 

 common both on the northern slopes of the Elburz and low down in the extremely 

 marshy forest close to the Caspian. Ingoldby flushed the bird at Bandar-i-Gaz from 

 small tufts of rice straw in wet paddy-fields in winter, and they are not rare in the dense 

 reed-beds round the Resht lagoon country in which purple herons, gallinules and 

 water rails seem more naturally at home. If one were to judge from the few specimens 

 at Tring and the British Museum, and the three males at my disposal, one would 

 conclude that the white ring so characteristic of some Eastern pheasants was repre- 

 sented solely by an occasional white-tipped feather in some males and not in others, but 

 this is far from being the case. I have seen many scores of specimens in the bazaars 

 of Resht and Enzeli, and a small proportion of them have very nearly complete white 

 rings to their necks, but are in other respects typical talyschensis. The throats of these 

 specimens had been cut almost to the point of decapitation, and I preserved no skins. 

 Pheasants are sold for about one tolman, approximately eight shillings, a price sufficient 

 to put every gunner's hand against them." 



SYNONYMY 



Phasianus colchims Blanford, East. Persia, II. 1876, p. 272 (Resht, Mazanderan); Radde, Orn. Cauc. 1885, 

 p. 289 (partim) ; Radde and Walt, Ornis, 1889, p. 90 (Talisch). 



Phasianus persicus Suz., subsp. talischensis Lorenz, Jour, fur Orn. 1888, p. 572 (Talisch). 



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