BURMESE BARRED-BACKED PHEASANT 



SyrmaticMs hmniae burmanicus (Oates) 



Names.— Specific : burmanicus, -dSX.o.r its native country, Burma. English : Burnnese Barred-backed Pheasant. 

 Native: Tit (Burmese), Wuri (Kachin). 



Brief Description. — Male : Similar to Hume's pheasant, but with the white fringe on the lower back and 

 rump twice as wide (5 mm.) ; much more chestnut on the wing-bars and the tail-feathers, and the steel blue of the 

 Manipur bird rather blue green. Female : Indistinguishable from the female oi humiae. 



Range. — Burma, east of the Irrawaddy, from Ruby Mines to the Southern Shan States. Yunnan. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 

 In Burma proper this pheasant has been recorded from Ruby Mines on the north, 

 south through Mandalay and both the Northern and Southern Shan States. I found 

 it both in Myitkyina and in the adjacent part of Yunnan. It grades into humiae 

 westward through Katha and the Upper Chindwin. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



Our ignorance of this bird in its wild home, of its life history and of its food and 

 breeding is almost complete. The few white men who have seen it have been sportsmen 

 whose only interest was to get it dead in their hands as soon as possible. 



My first view of the Burmese Pheasant was on the eastern boundary of Myitkyina 

 in northern Burma. 



I was one day waiting for some kaleege pheasants to put in an appearance at their 

 regular drinking-place, and was, as usual, the subject of abuse by a pair of squirrels and 

 a mob of laughing thrushes, when a new voice was added to the general hubbub. I 

 thought at first it was another species of squirrel — a series of rapidly uttered harsh 

 chucks — very evidently of alarm and suspicion. It came from a low tree near by, and 

 I soon discovered the author, for in a few minutes a sudden beating of wings brought 

 a long-tailed pheasant into full view. It alighted on a low stump, gave one glance in 

 my direction, uttered a single loud chack ! and dashed off through leaves and twigs. 



I neither saw nor heard this species alive again near this place, but during a later 

 trip farther east in western Yunnan I found a male Burmese Pheasant, much decomposed, 

 lying in a small pool of water in the jungle. It had two wounds in the back which 

 might have been inflicted by a large hawk, although the dense underbush would point 

 rather to one of the four-footed beasts of prey. Whatever the cause of death, the victim 

 had escaped being devoured, and was now in the process of dissolution by the combined 

 agents of warmth, water and a myriad ants. This individual had a great deal of 

 chestnut even for its subspecific form, the other characters being those of typical 

 btirmanicus. 



VOL. Ill 185 B B ' 



