YARKAND PHEASANT 



Phasianus colchicus shawi Elliot 



Names. — Subspecific : shawi, named for Robert Shaw, one of the few early English explorers who have been 

 to Yarkand and returned alive. English : Yarkand or Shaw's Pheasant. 



Type.— Locality : Yarkand. Describer : D. G. Elliot. Place of Description : Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, 

 p. 403. 



Subspecific Characters. — Male: The lesser and median wing-coverts white or whitish-buff; the lower 

 back, rump and upper tail-coverts are orange bronze with greenish and purplish reflections ; the feathers of the 

 lower back and rump have a green spot on each side of the shaft ; the upper back and breast edged with black, 

 often glossed with green, the golden ground-colour dominating the black on the back ; dark bars on basal half of 

 middle tail-feathers usually 3 to 4 mm. wide. P'emale : Very pale ; ground-colour of mantle pale rufous-buff; 

 general colour of remainder of plumage light buff. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



The Yarkand Pheasant has a wide range in the western part of Chinese Turkestan, 

 including the valleys of the Khotan-Daria, Yarkand-Daria and the Kashgar-Daria, the 

 upper reaches of the Tarim River and the lower parts of the Aksu Valley. It keeps to 

 the lower slopes, seldom ranging high up on the mountains. The caravan-road from 

 Sanju to Kashgar forms its south-western boundary. The impassable, snow-clad chain of 

 the Tian-Shan almost shuts off the Yarkand Pheasant, the most easterly of the white- 

 winged group, from its northern and north-western neighbours, the white-collared, 

 copper-throated, silvery-grey-winged inongolicus. From bianchii on the upper Oxus it 

 is separated by the great ranges of the Pamirs and Alai. Eastward the Yarkand 

 Pheasant has no definite physical boundary and somewhere in the valley of the middle 

 Tarim meets the sandy-winged tarimensis. 



SYNONYMY 



Phasianus shawi Elliot, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, p. 403 (Yarkand) ; Elliot, Mono. Phas., II. 1872, pi. I. 

 (text); Scully, Stray Feathers, III. 1875, p. 433 ; Scully, Stray Feathers, IV. 1876, pp. 75, 80, 83, 179 (Kashgar, 

 Beshkent, Yarkand); Gould, Birds Asia, VII. 1876, pi. XXXV.; Seebohm, Ibis, 1887, p. 171 ; Seebohm, Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 London, p. 415 (Aksu and Khotan Darya); Sharp, Sec. Yark., Miss. Aves, 1891, p. i2o(Guma, Yarkand, Maralbashi) ; 

 Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XXII. 1893, p. 326; Richmond, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., XVIII. 1897, p. S^^ ; Sharpe, 

 Hand-list Birds, Vol. I. 1899, p. 37; Dresser, Manual Palae. Birds, II. 1903, p. 660; Buturlin, Ibis, 1904, p. 394 

 (Western Chinese Turkestan); Buturlin, Ibis, 1908, pp. 585, 589. 



Phasianus insignis Elliot, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, p. 404 (Yarkand) ; Elliot, Mono. Phas., 1872, pt. ii, 

 pi. III.; Scully, Stray Feathers, III. 1875, p. 433. 



Phasianus chrysomelas Elliot, Stray Feathers, V. 1877, p. 198 (nee Sewertzow, 1875). 



Phasianus colchicus shawi Rothschild, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, XIV. 1904, p. 37; Hartert, Nov. Zool., XXIV. 

 1917, p. 450. 



Phasianus shawi chrysomeloides Lorenz, Ornith. Mon., XVII. 1909, p. 171 (E. Turkestan). 



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