TARIM PHEASANT 



Phasiantis colchicus tarimensis Pleske 



Names.— Subspecific : tarimensis, after the Tarim River, the lower valley of which is the bird's chief haunt. 

 English : Tarim Pheasant. 



Type.— Describer : Pleske. Place of Description : Reisen in Tibet by Przewalski, 1883, p. 95. 



Subspecific Characters.— Male : Closely resembles shawi, but the lesser and median wing-coverts are 

 sandy-rufous instead of whitish ; breast fiery bronze red, glossed with oily green and purple, and without marginal 

 band of black ; edges of rump and upper tail-coverts greenish buff, not orange red. Female : Similar to the 

 female of shawi. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 

 Eastern parts of Chinese Turkestan, including the lower Tarim and Cherchen-Daria 

 and the lakes Bagrach-kul and Lob-nor. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



Together with the Yarkand Pheasant {shawi) the Tarim bird occupies a range 

 enclosed, for the most part, by deserts and mountains. On the north and north-west the 

 great wall of the Tian-Shan separates it from mongolictis, while on the east the waterless 

 Kum-Tag desert intervenes between it and the grey-rumped satscheuensis ; and from 

 vlangalii in the south-east it is shut off by the lofty and majestic Altyn-Tag. To the 

 west the way is niore open and along the course of the Tarim River it somewhere meets 

 the easternmost individuals of the Yarkand Pheasant. 



Here in Eastern Turkestan we are in the heart of the distribution of this great 

 Asiatic genus of pheasants. The disintegrated, hairy condition of the lower back and 

 rump feathers is one of the most salient characters of Phasianus, and here in mid-Asia 

 we find the point of divergence in the colour of these feathers. From the Caucasus 

 eastward we have had to do with coppery- red rumped birds. From now onward to the 

 Pacific we shall find the rumps of the pheasants to be olive grey. The Tarim bird with 

 its green ish-buffy rump is somewhat intermediate, but on the whole shows a dominant 

 relationship to the western group, through the Yarkand Pheasant, while it is more 

 clearly distinguished from its neighbours by its yellowish-brown wing-coverts. \xv shawi 

 these feathers are yellowish white, in inongolictts silvery white, in vlangalii ashy grey 

 tinged with greenish, while the wing-coverts of satscheuensis are lavender grey. 



SYNONYMY 



Phasianus shawi YxiQ.yN2\s\i\, Proc. Imp. Russ. Geogr. Soc, XIII. 1877, p. 275 (Lob-nor) (nee Elliot, 1870). 



Phasianus tarimensis Przewalski, from Taissan through Khami to Tibet, 1883, p. 95 [descr. nulla) ; Przewalski, 

 Reisen in Tibet, 1884, p. 59; Pleske, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1888, p. 415 (Karaschar to Lob-nor); Grant, Cat, 

 Birds Brit. Mus., 1893, XXII. p. 327 ; Kozlow, Res. Imp. Russ. Geogr. S. Exped. C. Asia, II. 1899, PP- 74> 286, 

 (Koncke-Daria) ; Sharpe, Hand-list Birds, Vol. I. 1899, p. 37; Dresser, Manual Palae. Birds, II. 1903, p. 662 

 (subsp. oi Ph. persicus) ; Buturlin, Ibis, 1904, p. 397 (Eastern Chinese Turkestan); Dresser, Ibis, 1905, p. 152, 

 (egg) ; ButurHn, Ibis, 1908, pp. 585, 589. 



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

 XXIV. 1917, p. 451. 



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