138 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



CAPTIVITY 



The first living Green Pheasants are said to have been brought from Japan to 

 Antwerp in 1840. The Earl of Derby purchased a pair of these, the female of which 

 soon died. The male was crossed with several hens of the common pheasant, and the 

 successive generations were bred back until almost all trace of the latter was lost, and 

 the birds appeared to be full-blooded Japanese. These were distributed, some being 

 liberated in Italy and others in Norwich. Since that time many individuals of this 

 species have been imported. The full-blooded birds do not seem to be a pronounced 

 success in England. They do not breed so prolifically and are not so hardy as the 

 common pheasant, this being especially true of birds in Scotland and the north of 

 England. Hybridizing, however, seems to increase the size and hardiness of the birds, 

 and one of these first generations is said to have weighed 5 lb. 4 oz. They were 

 introduced into Oako, Hawaii, and seem to be thriving. 



Japanese pheasants breed fairly freely and are not difficult to rear. They cross 

 readily with any Phasianus, and the offspring are fertile inter se. The Japanese told 

 me repeatedly that the wild birds occasionally crossed with Yamadori, the Copper 

 Pheasant, and still more rarely with domestic fowls, but I could obtain no definite 

 proof of this. Hybrids have also been obtained with lineated pheasants. They are not 

 very long-lived birds, however, and of twenty-seven individuals in the London Zoo of 

 which records have been kept, the average length of life was twenty months, one bird 

 living over seven years. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — This is the most aberrant of all the true Phasiantis and, aside from 

 its being an insular form, shows no direct gradation with the continental species. With 

 reason, it is often considered the most beautiful of its genus, while as to size it is the 

 smallest. 



Forehead, chin and throat, grass green ; centre of crown and nape, bronze green ; 

 this is succeeded on each side by an evanescent, whitish zone, then by decided grass 

 green and purplish blue, the latter forming the border of the bare facial area; this 

 purplish-blue colour characterizes an elongated, sub-ocular patch, the entire under and 

 side neck and a narrow band across the upper neck ; mantle and upper back, dark green, 

 tinged with purple in all but fully adult birds ; lower mantle with two isolated buff lines 

 near the tip ; the hidden parts of the feather show several broken concentric buffy lines, 

 the outermost marking the limits of the metallic-green visible portion of the vane from 

 all the rest, which is dead black ; on the lower back the green fringe grows longer and 

 less cohesive ; the rump and upper tail-coverts show the usual Phasianus disconnected 

 condition of this greatly elongated fringe, which from intense metallic green has changed 

 to greenish slate ; unlike all the other members of the genus there are no lateral, rust- 

 coloured patches, the sides of the rump inclining to clear bluish slate or glaucous grey. 



Wing-coverts, bluish slate ; the scapulars form a distinct patch of colour ; the 

 pattern is similar to that of the mantle, but the visible green is replaced by a bright 

 chestnut, slightly margined with green ; while part of the inner concentric lining is 

 visible ; on the tertiaries this chestnut coloration becomes split at the tip and reduced 

 by encroaching greenish buff, and the concentric lines become mere mottlings ; the buff 



