IJIMA'S COPPER PHEASANT 173 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



From my own observations and from information obtained from Japanese sports- 

 men, I gathered that the Kiusiu Copper Pheasant is extremely sedentary, and seldom 

 wanders far from its home range. Indeed, the segregation of this white-rumped form 

 in so small an area would seem to warrant such an assumption without further proof. 



The birds live, as we have seen, in a very rugged, mountainous country, keeping 

 well up on the steep hillsides most of the time, but descending into the valleys to the 

 ricefields for food and water. During the season of the year when the rice is not 

 available they remain on the upper ridges, showing that there is sufficient food for them 

 in the more elevated forests. The vicinity of Kirishimayama is typical Ijima Pheasant 

 country, and from every direction we can see this splendid double-peaked mountain. 

 The summits are at present dead and bare, but well down on the southern slope, 

 sheltered by a great rounded shoulder, is the present active crater. From the fringe 

 of cryptomerias which surrounds this drifts a soft billowing blue smoke now upward, 

 now curling gracefully around the great crags, dissolving so soon into invisibility that 

 it looks like a small, isolated cloud. 



In general habits Ijima's Pheasant differs to no appreciable extent from its more 

 northern relation — scintillans. There is a less pronounced annual migration, as the 

 weather is much milder even at the higher altitudes, and their food supply is probably 

 never completely shut off by winter storms. 



Owing to the large satsuma factories in this part of Japan there is a considerable 

 number of well-to-do merchants, many of whom are sportsmen. Shortly before my 

 visit one of these had shot sixty of these splendid birds in a comparatively limited area, 

 all of which had been plucked and eaten. So this very local form seems doomed to 

 early extinction, especially as there are no laws to prevent its being killed during the 

 breeding season. In all Japan there is less than a score of preserved skins of this 

 interesting pheasant : six specimens in two local schools in Kagoshima and nine or ten 

 in the University of Tokyo. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — The fundamental pattern of almost the entire plumage is a dark, 

 rich chestnut, with basal black extending up the vanes in the form of two elongated, 

 anteriorly rounded, more or less visible spots. The chestnut thus occupies most of 

 the terminal visible portion of the feather, and extends basally as narrow lines down 

 each margin and down the shaft. The head is dominately chestnut with a vinous cast, 

 but on the neck, mantle, back and breast a conspicuous metallic margin is developed, 

 changing from vinous carmine to fiery gold. 



On the wing-coverts, lower sides, posterior breast and remainder of the ventral 

 plumage this gloss disappears, the vinous chestnut being dominant. On the wing- 

 coverts and lower sides the basal black is quite conspicuous, showing distinctly even 

 when the feathers are perfectly aligned. 



The flight feathers resemble those of soemnierringi. The white markings are not 

 alike on any two individuals, but the extreme may be described as follows : At the 

 side of the posterior mantle, almost at the insertion of the wing, all the visible portion 



