BORNEAN CRESTLESS FIREBACK 



Acomus pyronotus (Gray) 



Names. — Specific : pyronohis, from Greek irvp, fire, and vSiTo>i, back. English : Bornean Crestless Fireback ; 

 Bornean Rufous-tailed Pheasant. Native : Singgier. 



Brief Description. — Male : Head brown, upper neck grey ; lower neck and mantle grey, breast black, all 

 with white shafts ; lower back golden, changing posteriorly into bronze red, and on the tail-coverts into purple. 

 Posterior under plumage black, tail buff. Female : Head brown ; entire plumage black, heavily glossed on dorsal 

 surface with steel-blue. 



Range. — Sarawak, Borneo. 



DISTRIBUTION 



The type specimens of this Fireback are labelled " China," but we now know that it 

 is confined to the Island of Borneo, and very probably to the north-western portion, 

 included in the boundaries of Sarawak. Even in this limited area the bird is the 

 rarest of all the pheasants, and I could learn nothing of it in the interior. Along the 

 coastal zone, within twenty or thirty miles of salt water, where there is solid ground, 

 this bird may be looked for. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



The low-lying jungle in Sarawak is the home of the Bornean Crestless Fireback. 

 The ground for the most part is damp and soggy, and covered thickly with a carpet of 

 large and small dead leaves in all stages of decay. In every depression water stands, 

 and every leaf holds at its point a diamond pendant, which drops at longer or shorter 

 intervals. Even with the most careful stalking and patient watching it is most difficult 

 to ferret out the life secrets of these wary Firebacks, but first let us see amid what scenes, 

 what vegetation and animal life they make their home. The pheasant people of whom 

 we are writing are altogether ground hunters, except at night, when they roost among 

 the branches of some densely foliaged tree. So we will leave the detailed examination 

 of the ground until later, and concern ourselves now with the mid and upper jungle. 



Vines, saplings, and sprouting palms struggle fiercely for light and air, and always 



the vine is the victor, climbing to health and strength on its opponent's trunk and branches. 



The trunks are decorated with beautiful scarlet and white lichens, and creeping vines clutch 



the bark in their upward course like enormous vegetable millipedes. Thorns and briers 



are everywhere ; the terrible spiny palm with its rows upon rows of bristling chevaux- 



de-frise, and innocent-looking vines which, cat-like, sheathe their claws in thick down. 



The most insidious is a climbing rotan palm, which sends up its graceful fronds high 



in air among the trunks, then from the tips, yards away, drops a wire-like strand to the 



ground, covered throughout with the sharpest of tooth-like thorns. This is weighted 



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