KHIVAN PHEASANT 



Phasianus colchicus chrysomelas Sewertzow 



NAMES.—Subspeclfic : chrysomelas, XP^^o^;, gold, fxeXa^, black, golden black or dark yellow, referring to the 

 bird's colour. English : Khivan or Northern Oxus or Aral Pheasant. 



Type.— Locality : Amu-Daria. Describer : Sewertzow. Place of Description : Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc 

 XLVIII. 1875 (dated 1874, but issued 1875), p. 207 (Amu-Daria). 



Brief Description.— Male : Breast and upper back widely margined with black, so that on the visible 

 portion the black equals the golden ground-colour , flank feathers simply emarginated and the end of the feathers 

 occupied by a black spot ; dark bars on basal half of middle tail-feathers narrow, 2 mm. or less. Female • 

 Resembles the female of shawi, but is like principalis in having the black spots on the under plumage more 

 strongly marked. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



The delta of the Oxus or Amu-Daria and the lower parts of its valley and the 

 oasis of Khiva in the district of the same name. On the west its range is bordered 

 by the Ust-Urt Plateau ; on the south by the waterless desert of Kara-Kum. On the 

 south-east from the town of Khiva southward it is replaced by sarudnyi, and along the 

 shores of the Aral Sea to the north it meets somewhere the broad-collared turcestanicus. 



SYNONYMY 



Phasianus, nova sp. Bogdanow, Trans. Soc. Natur. St. Petersb., VI. 1875, p. LXXXVI. (Khiva). 



Phasianus chrysomelas Sewertzow, Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc, XLVIII. pt. iii, 1875 (dated 1874, but issued 1875) 

 p. 207 (Amu-Daria); Sewertzow, Jour, fiir Orn,, 1875, p. 225 ; Sewertzow, Ibis, 1875, p. 493 (Lower Amu-Daria) ; 

 Gould, Birds Asia, VII. 1876, pi. XXXVI. ; Bogdanow, Consp. Av. Ross., 1884, fasc. I. p. 20 (Amu-Daria) ; Seebohm, 

 Ibis, 1887, p. 172 ; Pleske, Mem. Ac. St. Petersb., 1888 (7), XXXVI. No. 3, p. 48 (Kasalinsk) ; Grant, Cat. Birds 

 Brit. Mus., XXII. 1893, p. 327 ; Zarudny, Orn. Faun. Transcasp., 1896, p. 479; Dresser, Manual Palae. Birds, II. 

 1903, p. 662 ; Sharpe, Hand-list Birds, 1899, Vol. I., p. 37 ; Dresser, Ibis, 1905, p. 152 {egg) ; Buturlin, Ibis, 1904, 

 p. 392 (Delta of Amu-Daria, lower parts of its valley and oasis of Khiva). 



Phasianus dorrandti Sewertzow, Jour, fiir Orn,, 1875, p. 225. 



Phasianus oxianus Sewertzow, Jour, fiir Orn., 1875, p. 225. 



Phasianus insignis Elliot, Ibis, 1876, p. 132 (nee Elliot, 1870). 



Phasianus colchicus chrysomelas Hartert, Nov. Zool, XXIV. 1917, p^ 450 ; Rothschild, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, 

 XIV. 1904, p. -^7. 



Phasianus chrysomelas typicus Buturlin, Ibis, 1908, pp. 585, 589. 



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