90 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



8. Adult Male. — The second male I shot on sight, and at such close range that I 

 nearly blew it to pieces. At first glance it seemed to be a silver pheasant 

 (nyctheinerus), and stood out sharply from all its companions on both the 

 occasions when I watched it working downhill. The second time I had my 

 gun and secured it at once. It proved to be a very dark representative of what 

 has been called ripponi, but differing in having greenish, instead of scarlet legs 

 and feet. 



All this astounding variety of kaleege I found within two miles of the dak bungalow 

 at Pongatong, associating together, and, as I have said, with satisfactory evidence of 

 being in families. Even if the birds were of no immediate relationship, the fact of their 

 remarkable variation is none the less indicative of hybridism. This is typical of what I 

 found to exist in other parts of Burma. The Arakan country and Annam I did not 

 visit, and hence I cannot speak at first hand with regard to the birds which inhabit those 

 regions. 



All the specimens which I gathered in northern Burma tend to exhibit this 

 individual variation and blending of character, and in all my observations there is 

 nothing to show any pronounced uniformity in the forms I have mentioned. But while 

 thus being compelled to consider these as unworthy of specific validity, there is an 

 interesting phase of the subject in regard to certain of the other forms. Some of these 

 pheasants, which apparently owe their peculiar colour and pattern to the crossing of two 

 feral species, seem to have found more or less isolated regions where they have become 

 more or less established. It is difficult to know exactly how to treat these, and in my 

 first review of this genus (" Zoologica," Review of the Genus Gennaeus) I admitted 

 tentatively four forms or sub-species or fixed hybrids. But, as I have already said, more 

 thorough examination of all the specimens available has shown me that it is a case of 

 degree, not of kind, and as long as specimens typical of one of the three main species 

 lineatus, nycthemerus and horsfieldi have been recorded from the heart of the inter- 

 vening areas containing the hybrids, I see no reason to consider any of them as worthy 

 of a name. 



The sphere of influence existing between horsfieldi on the north-west and lineatus 

 on the south-east is populated by an interesting series of hybrids, which, except in the 

 case of the irregular mountain chains and cross valleys, show a fairly gradual gradation 

 from the one to the other parent species. 



I have chosen Cuvier's kaleege as the wild pheasant hybrid representing one of the 

 first links in this chain of cross-breeding between true horsfieldi and lineatus . In shape 

 and in general colouring it is similar to horsfieldi^ being mostly bluish black with 

 a white rump-fringe. But the feathers of the upper body-plumage, wings and tail are 

 all finely and regularly pencilled with wavy white lines. The markings are like those of 

 the Chinese silver kaleege reversed. The female resembles the female of horsfieldi, but 

 the tail feathers are dominately rufous, mottled with black, the outer pairs being black 

 toward the tips, and elsewhere pencilled with fine white lines. The average would seem 

 to be 75% of horsfieldi, and 25% of lineatus blood. Specimens more or less like this 

 are found scattered through the middle and northern Arakan Hills, extending into 

 Chittagong. 



