50 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



one. The tailless cock and the others have gone down in the jungle just ahead of us, so, 

 spreading out, we walk them out toward the next/y^^;;/, every now and then hearing them 

 as they hurry forward, rustling over the fallen leaves. Before we get to the edge of the 

 jungle they have cleared off, without giving another chance, but a single cock Kalij, which 

 has tarried a little longer than the others, gets up just as we too emerge from the trees, 

 and is promptly bowled over and gathered. The mustard here is so high — up to our 

 waists — that we may find some birds lying up in it, and accordingly we work through it 

 in line, myself on the inside next the forest, and a few yards ahead of the men. Within 

 the next few minutes two birds run through the mustard, and gain the jungle in front of 

 me without giving a chance, and then a barking deer jumps up and comes bounding past 

 me about forty yards off, barking as he starts, and barking again as he gains cover and 

 stands inside, defying me. He is still barking as we pass where he stands, and I can 

 hear the stamp of his forefeet, before panic again seizes him and he dashes further away 

 into the depth of the forest. Nothing more shows up until I have reached the end of the 

 mustard, and stand on the yard or two of bare ground which separates it from the 

 nearest trees. As the men come nearer two or three jungle-fowl flit across it, and then 

 there is a tremendous commotion as nearly a dozen birds, jungle-fowl and pheasants 

 mixed together, rise into the air. A hasty shot at one of the former not only knocks it 

 over, but also accounts for an unlucky hen pheasant which has come into the line of fire, 

 and a second shot brings to bag another hen pheasant, which falls, a cloud of flying 

 feathers, with a bang right on to the man with my luncheon-basket. After he has righted 

 himself and collected my scattered provisions, we proceed on our way, and by noon, when 

 we stop to have a rest and lunch, I have managed to bag twelve pheasants, six jungle- 

 fowl, three imperial pigeon, and a couple of very evil-smelling white-eyed pochard, which, 

 however, are not disdained by the coolies." 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male.— The plumage in general is black, strongly glossed with purplish 

 blue, especially on the upper surface, the posterior ventral plumage being almost dead 

 black without the metallic gloss. The only decided colour character is found on the 

 feathers of the back, rump and shorter upper tail-coverts, which have a very conspicuous 

 white fringe of a normal width of about 5 mm. Throughout most of the western part 

 of the range this varies but little, but to the eastward in many individuals we find a 

 tendency toward the disintegration of this fringe. It either becomes narrower, or else the 

 basal part is broken by dark mottling. Correlated with this there is often an extension 

 of white as a very narrow terminal border over the inner, median wing-coverts and 

 tertiaries and the longest tail-coverts. About fifty per cent, of the individuals have the 

 extreme hidden bases of the median tail-feathers obscurely but thickly vermiculated with 

 dirty white. This is almost invariably the case with birds from northern Burma east of 

 the Irrawaddy, where the vermiculation often extends an inch or two beyond the visible 

 portion of the feathers. The variations occurring along the geographical junction with 

 nycthemerus and lineatus are multitudinous, and often asymmetrical, reflecting the 

 widespread hybridization with these species. 



The crest is long, rather thin and partly disintegrated. The primaries are brown ; 



