HUME'S BARRED-BACKED PHEASANT 



Syrmaticus humiae humiae (Hume) 



Names. — Specific: humiae, for Mrs. Allan Hume, wife of the British ornithologist. English: Hume's 

 Barred-backed Pheasant. Native : Loe-nin-koi (Manipuri) ; Yit (Burmese) ; Wuri (Kachin). 



Brief Description. — Male : Crown brown ; neck, upper mantle, chin and throat dark metallic steel blue; 

 mantle fiery red ; lower back and rump bluish-green with a narrow white fringe ; wing as in Elliot ; breast chestnut 

 with blue gloss and fiery red margins ; belly and sides chestnut ; middle tail-feathers grey with narrow bars of 

 mixed chestnut and black ; lateral tail-feathers barred with black, the outer pairs mostly black with grey bases. 

 Female : Resembles elliotiy except that the throat and fore-neck are usually devoid of black. 



Range. — Manipur, the Lushai and the Chin Hills. To the east of Manipur, in Katha, it grades into 

 burmanicus. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



Hume's Pheasant is very generally distributed in Manipur from the extreme 

 north on the Naga Hills boundary, southward through the province, and on into the 

 Lushai and the Chin Hills. 



Two specimens from Katha, many miles to the east of Manipur, and about an 

 equal distance from the Ruby Mines District of Burma proper, are both almost exactly 

 intermediate in character between humiae and burmanicus. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



The first specimens of this pheasant to come into the hands of an ornithologist 

 were two males — one living, the other dead — which Mr. Hume obtained under most 

 interesting conditions. As in the case of the Mikado pheasant, the first hint that a new 

 species was living in the country was given by the tail-feathers of a bird in the head- 

 dress of a native. Mr. Hume's account is too interesting to abridge. 



He was travelling in the country which lies between Bengal and Assam on the west, 

 and Burma proper on the east, and was not expecting to find any new species of game- 

 bird. He says : 



"The day before I crossed the Jhiri River, which divides the British district of 

 Cachar from His Highness the Maharajah of Manipur's territories, the Manipur Envoy, 

 who was to accompany me in my peregrinations as guide, mentor, and commandant of 

 my Manipur escort, came to meet me. 



'* In Manipur officials of rank who have deserved well of the State receive from the 

 Maharaja's hands a plume of feathers, which they are henceforth entitled to wear, and 

 which, in this simpler state of society, represents our stars and garters, our G.C.B.'s and 

 grand crosses, etc. Not unnaturally the Envoy who boasted one of these coveted insignia 

 drew my attention to his plume, of which he was evidently proud, and on my examining 



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