i68 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



the unscientific mental character of most pheasant fanciers that in all the published 

 records and accounts of breeding not one describes the eggs, chicks, or the juvenile 

 plumage, the courtship, the length of incubation, the moults or the voice either of adult 

 or young. Every one of these important phases or habits of life could have been made 

 with perfect accuracy and completion in any one successful breeding experience. 



In 1864 Copper Pheasants were represented in the Zoological Gardens of London 

 and Rotterdam, and in the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris. The following year the 

 first egg was laid in the former Zoo, and before 1868 these birds had bred three 

 different times in several European gardens. 



Of late years there has been little success in breeding, and it is very evident that 

 this species cannot be perpetuated after it has become extinct in a wild state. The 

 wariness and nervousness of the cocks make any successful breeding in captivity a very 

 fortunate occurrence. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — No two individuals are exactly alike, but the extreme form, 

 especially common in the northern parts of Honda, shows white, or the effect of dilution 

 with light pigment in every part of the plumage. The head is dull cinnamon ; the neck, 

 fore mantle and breast coppery bronze, with paler lateral fringe. The paler colour in the 

 hue of yellow gold is sometimes characteristic of all the mantle and back, and represents 

 the intermediate stage between the typical soeminerringi dark purple carmine and the 

 pure white. 



The white on the back and rump is of a very different order from the concentration 

 of the same colour in ijimae. In the present form the central terminal part of the feather 

 is always copper or gold ; there is never an area of solid white colour, but always an 

 impression of streaking, owing to the lateral limitation of the white. The basal chestnut, 

 and usually the still more basal black, are more or less visible. The dorsal feathers 

 almost always have a very narrow terminal margin of black. 



The middle and greater wing-coverts are broadly margined with buffy white, 

 separated from the pale vinous of the rest of the feather by a narrow line of black. 

 The breast is visibly pale vinous, basally mostly black. The lower breast, sides, belly, 

 and flanks are pale brown with long terminal fringe of creamy white, a character as 

 strong as any in separating the extremes oi scintillans from the more southern forms. 



The tail shows a number of narrow black bands, each bounded anteriorly by an 

 equally narrow one of buffy white, and posteriorly by a broader one of dark chestnut. 

 The remaining very wide interspaces are pale rufous, much mottled with black. On the 

 lateral tail-feathers the white cross-bar becomes much extended and black mottled on 

 the inner web, and disappears altogether from the outer web. The tips of these feathers 

 are black. The under tail-coverts are black with a narrow shaft-streak of chestnut. 

 Fleshy parts as in soeimnerringi. 



The measurements on the whole diminish somewhat as we pass northward, but this 

 is especially true as regards the tail. The average of twelve specimens from northern 

 Honda, living on a high ridge far in the interior, in length of tail was only 660 mm., 

 equal to the minimum measurement oi soe^nmerringi. Instead of some fifteen cross-bars 

 these birds had an average of only nine. The reduction in the central rectrices of these 



