HUME'S BARRED-BACKED PHEASANT i8i 



occasion seen the bird leave the nest, it would have been difficult to attribute them to 

 any other bird than Hume's Pheasant. The junglefowl does not breed at seven thousand 

 feet in this part of Burma, and the eggs are much too small for any of the forms of 

 silver or kalij pheasants which are to be found in the Chin Hills; and, moreover, 

 though superficially just like junglefowl eggs, those I have seen are more finely grained, 

 with a closer texture, slightly glossed, and with much thinner shells in proportion to 

 their size. 



" Eggs very similar to those in my collection are four eggs laid by P. elegcms in the 

 Zoological Society's Gardens at Regent's Park, and which are now in the Natural History 

 Museum. Both P. scintillans and ellioti also lay cream or stone-coloured eggs, so that 

 there is really nothing extraordinary in the Hume's bird doing the same. 



" In shape they are broad ovals, but a little compressed towards the smaller end, and 

 do not appear to vary much. In length the thirty eggs of which I have measurements 

 vary between 45-2 and 52*8 mm., and in breadth between 33*2 and 37-6 mm., the average 

 being 477 and 35-3 mm. These pheasants appear to be early breeders, for both the 

 clutches obtained in the end of April were so hard set that they must have been laid in 

 March, and though it is hardly safe to generalize on such scanty material, the 15th of 

 March to the 15th of May is probably the limit of their breeding season." 



A letter from Mr. Cook to Baker completes about all that we know of this interesting 

 pheasant : Hume's Pheasant " I often saw and shot. The birds were generally to be 

 found in somewhat open jungle, where the trees are principally oaks and similar species, 

 and where one finds undergrowth and open spaces of long grass, or long grass and 

 bracken mixed. Near Minkin I found them in steep grass slopes, and here they were 

 by no means uncommon, and associated in small flocks or family parties. On one 

 occasion I flushed no less than eight or ten birds from an anthill overgrown with grass 

 and crowned with a clump of dwarf dates, upon the fruit of which I think the pheasants 

 were feeding. As far as my experience goes, they do not fly very far when first flushed, 

 and as a rule they fly low down, seldom, if ever, rising above the tops of the trees ; nor 

 does their flight strike one as being at all fast, and compared with the English pheasant 

 it seems very much slower. They are not hard birds to flush, especially the first time, 

 but as I have always had a dog out with me when after these birds I cannot speak with 

 much authority on this point. When alighting after the first flight they often run 

 considerable distances, but one may put a bird up time after time from almost the exact 

 spot at which he drops. 



" They are such beautiful birds that their very beauty has sometimes saved their 

 lives when I have really wanted them badly : their skins as specimens and their flesh 

 for the pot. To see half a dozen cock birds rise almost at one's feet and then scatter 

 in all directions, the wonderful blue and white feathers of their rumps showing up like 

 flags against the rest of the brilliant plumage, is a most extraordinary sight, and I have 

 found the blaze of colour so gorgeous and attractive that I have sometimes been 

 arrested in the very act of raising my gun to fire, and have instead stood to watch 

 them and enjoy the sight. 



" I think wherever I have found this bird there have been outcrops of rock here 

 and there in the grass they frequent. In some cases these outcrops are scattered and 

 few, but, again, very thick and plentiful, so that the patches of grass form little roads in 



