GOLDEN PHEASANT 



Chrysolophus pichis (Linnaeus) 



Names. — Generic : Chrysolophus, Gr. xpvaoko^o<i, with golden crest, from x/)u<ro?, gold, + Xo<^o9, crest. 

 Specific : pidus, Latin, painted or adorned. English : Golden or Painted Pheasant. French : Faisan dore ou 

 tricolor de la Chine. German : Goldfasan. Native : Kin-ky or Ching Chi (Fowl of Gold, Chinese). 



Brief Description. — Male : Top of the head and long, hairy crest, lower back and rump golden yellow ; 

 truncated cape-feathers orange, tipped and barred with steel blue. Mantle metallic green tipped with black. 

 Scapulars dark crimson ; wing-coverts brown mottled with black ; inner secondaries dark purple. Chin, throat 

 and sides of face pale rusty brown. Entire under parts and tips of the upper tail-coverts shining crimson. Central 

 tail-feathers black, thickly and coarsely dotted with pale brown, the remaining tail-feathers mostly obliquely barred 

 with the same colour. Female : Top of head, mantle and wings black barred with buff and rufous ; lower back 

 and rump buff finely mottled with black. Chin and throat buffy white ; sides of face and under parts buff, barred 

 except on the mid-belly, with dark brown. Tail barred and somewhat mottled with buff and black. 



Range. — Mountains of Central China. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



We have but a vague idea of the exact limits of the range of the Golden Pheasant. 

 The mountains of Central China indicate it in general, and more specifically we have 

 records of its occurrence in a wild state in western Hupeh, eastern and northern 

 Szechuan, southern Shensi and Kansu, and south-eastern Kokonor. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



Probably no other bird in the world is so well known in captivity and so easy to 

 breed, and yet at the same time with haunts, habits and general life in a wild state so 

 absolutely unknown as the Golden Pheasant. For centuries the Chinese have kept in 

 captivity and depicted this brilliant species, long before it was seen by any Caucasian 

 ornithologist, and while for the last hundred and seventy years we find numerous 

 allusions to the bird in literature, these are wholly barren of interest, except as they 

 refer to its life in confinement. 



The reason for this ignorance seems to be twofold. First, the supply of wild 

 caught captive birds and of skins available in China is so ample and constant that there 

 has been no incentive to send collectors to the haunts of the birds after specimens. And 

 again, the Golden Pheasant is a poor game-bird, preferring to run rather than fly, and 

 hence is ignored by the sportsmen who have penetrated to its wild home. 



In Hupeh I found this bird fairly common, and it seems to be generally distributed 

 in the western part of the province. 



Wherever a steep ridge, rocky and barren save for a dense growth of scrub bamboo, 

 made it impossible for the Chinese to utilize even a foot of the ground for their crops, 

 here there was excellent chance of finding Golden Pheasants. The tops of these ranges 



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