loo A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



wherever there were berries, in fact. The runners proved a nuisance, but several were 

 saved by my dog, who was, however, more addicted to fur than feather, for he was of 

 the breed used by the Siberian fur-hunters, and had been trained to run sable and to 

 "tree" squirrels. He was quite out of place at a pheasant shoot, and preferred the 

 chasing of innumerable hares, which literally swarmed in this region. When my good 

 cartridges began to run out, I used to put an English cartridge into one barrel and a 

 Russian into the other, with most pleasing results to the bird at which the Russian was 

 fired. The comparison was so marked that my native soon saw the joke of it, and 

 when a bird passed away untouched, to the resounding bang of a smoky Russian, he 

 would cry out ' Ruski,' whilst * Inglis ' was his echo to the sharp, clean sound of a 

 smokeless Schultze and a crumpled bird falling to earth. 



"I finished my supply of ammunition and returned to my quarters in the native 

 house. Here I laid out the bag, and found that I had shot forty-one birds, and that 

 the proportion of males to females was twenty-seven to fourteen. This was remarkable, 

 for although I actually needed more cocks than hens, yet I had not taken the least 

 trouble to get them. In fact, I am sure that I put up more cock birds than hens. In 

 one locality alone I remember finding a very great majority of hen birds, and it is 

 possible that they have their haunts perhaps on some of the inaccessible islands, where 

 food is plentiful and enemies scarce. The next day I packed a horse with a couple 

 of sacks containing the birds, and, crossing the Kash by a narrow ice bridge, under 

 which the torrent wound threateningly, rode back to Kuldja in fourteen hours. 



"The possibilities of pheasant shooting on the Kash are very great. Two guns 

 would increase the bag to far more than double, and if a few beaters could be hired, 

 and a man with a pony engaged to carry the spoil, shooting would become more of a 

 pleasure and less of a labour. The birds are certainly numerous, and not likely to 

 diminish in numbers. They have endless territory, the natives scarcely hunt them at 

 all, and never sufficiently to make the least impression on their numbers, whilst there 

 are but few enemies in the shape of wild cats and foxes. In spring and summer, when 

 the foliage is out, it is scarcely possible to find or to put them up. Thus they are 

 naturally protected during the breeding season. The climate, also, is so even, and the 

 weather so constantly true to itself, that little or no damage is ever done to young 

 birds. The Mongolian pheasant has, in fact, everything that nature means it to have 

 and none of those artificial benefits which attend the life history of an English-bred 

 bird." 



SYNONYMY 



Phasianus colchicus Licht, in Eversm., Reise. nach Buchara, 1823, p. 133 (nee Linne), (Kuwan and Jan 

 Darjo) ; Meyend, Voy. a Bokhara, 1826, p. 428. 



Phasianus torquatus Karelin, Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc., 1841, p. 561 (Tarbagatai), (nee Gmelin, 1788). 



Phasianus mongolicus Brandt, Bull. Acad. St. Petersb., III. 1844, p. 51 (Altai); Gould, Birds Asia, VII. 1858, 

 pi. XLI. ; Sclater, List. Phas., 1863, p. 4; Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soe. London, 1863, p. 116; Gray, List Gall. Brit. Mus., 

 1867, p. 27; Gray, Hand-list Birds, II. 1870, p. 257; Elliot, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, p. 408; Elliot, Mono. 

 Phas., II. 1872, pi. IV. (text); Sewertzow, Turkest. Jevotn., 1873, p. 6%\ Sewertzow, Bull. Mosc., XLVIII. pt. iii, 

 1875, p. 208; Sewertzow, Jour, fur Orn., 1875, p. 224; Sewertzow, Ibis, 1875, p. 493 ; Dresser, Ibis, 1876, p. 323 ; 

 Finsch, Verh. Ges. Wien, XXIX. 1880, p. 241; Bogdanow, Consp. Av. Ross., fasci. I. 1884, p. 20; Seebohm, 

 Ibis, 1887, p. 173 ; Pleske, Mem. Ac. St. Petersb. (7), XXXVI. 1888, No. 3, p. 47 (Chinaz); Alph^raky, Kuldja 

 and Tian-Shan (Russ.), 1891, pp. 5, 17, 19, 22, 29, 48, 89, 98, 153; Kozlow, Results of the I.R.G.S. Exped. in 

 C. Asia in 1893-5, II. 1899, p. 5 ; Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XXII. 1893, P- 328; Sharpe, Hand-list Birds 



