WHITE-TAILED WATTLED PHEASANT 



Lobiophasis bulweri Sharpe 



Names. — Generic : Lobiophasis, from the Greek Xo^oz, lobe or wattle, and cpamavog, pheasant, from the very 

 highly developed cephalic wattles. Specific: bulweri, after His Excellency H. F. Bulvver, Governor of Labuan. 

 English : White-tailed Wattled or Bulwer's Pheasant. Native : Blaiou (Kayan and Dyak, Sarawak) ; Bau-eu 

 (Dutch Borneo) ; Bagier (circa Mount Dulit). 



Brief Description, — Male : Neck all around and upper breast dark crimson ; remaining plumage black, 

 all the feathers narrowly margined with steel-blue. Upper tail-coverts and tail pure white. Bare skin of head and 

 wattles bright blue ; legs and feet red. The immature male has the tail coverts and tail chestnut. Female : 

 Brownish-buff above, finely mottled with black ; lower plumage rufous similarly mottled ; tail clear chestnut. 



Range. — Central Borneo. 



THE WHITE-TAILED PHEASANT IN ITS HAUNTS 



As a rule animal life is not abundant in the Bornean jungle, compared with 

 the great primeval forests of South America. Occasionally, however, I was treated 

 to most interesting sights, and such days will always remain most vividly impressed 

 on my mind. Once, far up near the foot-hills of the mountains, on a tributary of 

 the upper Rejang in Sarawak, I had pushed on around a sharp bend in the river, 

 and was preparing to work up through the rapids ahead, when one of my Kayan 

 paddlers said through the interpreter that he and his companions had heard of 

 the death of a sub-chief at a village on a side branch of the river, and they would 

 all like to go and pay their respects to the deceased — in words, half English, half 

 Malay, to that effect. I always made it a rule to comply with all the little cere- 

 monies of my savage helpers, and to allow any tribal customs, religious or otherwise, 

 and in return I found they always gave me most honest, efficient service. I was 

 rather disappointed at having to stop, but as the afternoon was half over we could 

 not have made much more progress against the boiling, yellow rapids just ahead. 

 So I gave my permission, and the canoes were quickly beached on a sandbar. 



The Kayans with their great truncated, sword-like knives cut down the under- 

 growth and erected two little raised shelters for me and my Malay servants, well 

 out of the reach of any possible sudden rise of water. Having made certain that 

 Tuan needed nothing more that they could provide, they unpacked their small bundles 

 of possessions and proceeded to adorn themselves with what pieces of black cloth 

 they possessed, and arrayed at last, they dropped swiftly out of sight down-stream, 

 and I was left canoeless in the heart of Borneo. I knew I could trust the savages, 

 however, and began at once to cast about for a way of getting into the forest which 

 began at the very bank of the river. The undergrowth was extremely dense, but at 

 the second circling I intersected a low game-trail. I fear it was but a wild-boar 



path, and a "pig-high" trail was never intended for the passage of a six-foot 



146 



