PERSIAN PHEASANT 



Phasianus colchicus persicus Sewertzow 



Names. — Subspecific : persicus, Latin, persicus, Persian. English : Persian Pheasant. 



Type. — LocaHty : Southern shore of Caspian Sea. Describer : Sewertzow. Place of Description : Bull. 

 Soc. Nat. Mosc. XLVIII. 1874 (but published in 1875), p. 208. 



Subspecific Characters. — Male : Differs from the Caucasian Pheasants in having the lesser and median 

 wing-coverts buffy white ; the back, flanks and breast have a much stronger golden-yellow ground colour ; the 

 abdomen is edged with purplish red ; the breast feathers are somewhat pointed, and deeply emarginate, while the 

 black margin is very narrow, not wider than half a millimetre. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



North-eastern Persia and South-western Transcaspia, including the valleys of 

 the Atrek and Gurgen Rivers, and their tributaries, such as the Tchirin-tchai, Kizzl-kan, 

 Sumbar, Chandyr, middle Atrek and Kara-su. It extends along the Caspian coast from 

 the left bank of the lower Atrek to the Ashur-ada Island and Potemkin Peninsula. It 

 probably does not quite meet colchicus talischensis in Mazanderan. To the south it is 

 bounded by the Elburz Mountains ; on the north the lower Atrek and the Kopet-dah 

 Mountains form a natural boundary, and in the east it does not extend beyond Darah-gaz, 

 Kalat-i-Nadir and the other mountains which form the watershed between the valleys 

 of the Atrek and the Heri-rud. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



In geographical position, as well as in plumage characters, the Persian Pheasant is 

 intermediate between the dark-winged, brownish-bellied Caucasian Pheasants and the 

 white-winged, maroon-rufous-bellied birds of the principalis group. It overruns what 

 well might be mountainous barriers to most avian species, and shows occasional hints of 

 interbreeding. 



The Tchirin-tchai and the Kizzl-kan are two northern tributaries of the Atrek along 

 which the Persian Pheasant is found in numbers. The sources of these rivers lie in 

 vast plains covered with reeds, which are inhabited by troops of wild boars and covies 

 of pheasants. The parts of the country free of reeds have the appearance of steppes and 

 are of the same general character as the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Here 

 quantities of bustards are found. Along the banks of the rivers the vegetation forms a 

 zone of dense growth. It is sometimes necessary to travel a considerable distance before 

 being able to penetrate to the water. Here the berries of the junipers ripen in late July 

 and early August, and furnish food not only for the pheasants, but for quantities of 

 starlings and warblers. After leaving the plains the rivers occasionally flow through 

 gorges, often exceedingly deep and narrow. Islands appear now and then covered with 



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