SUMATRA BRONZE-TAILED PEACOCK PHEASANT 



Chalcurus chalcurus (Lesson) 



Names. — Specific : chalcurus, similar to the generic. English : Sumatra Bronze-tailed Peacock Pheasant. 

 French : Eperonnier chaleure, ou Napoleon. Native : Karo-karo ; Loekei. 



Type. — Locality : Erroneously recorded *' De Java." Describer : Lesson. Place of Description : Traite 

 d'Orn., 1831, p. 487. Location of Type: Paris Museum. 



Brief Description. — Male : General colour brown ; above barred with dull rufous ; throat and neck with 

 shaft-spots ; tail-feathers black, barred with rufous, the central ones shading into purplish blue toward the tip, 

 while on the lateral feathers this metallic colouring occupies most of the outer and much of the inner webs. 

 Female : Similar, but smaller, and without spurs. 



Range. — The mountains of Sumatra. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



Lesson, in his "Traite d'Ornithologie " of 1831, called this bird Polyplectrum 

 chalcuriim or Tfiperonnier sans yeux, and confided to his reader that it was " Brun-roux 

 raye de brun. De Java." The individual bird which furnished this lucid information was 

 in the Museum de Paris, and was the same one which Temminck, later in the same year, 

 figured and called Polyplectron chalcurum or Eperonnier Chaleure. Temminck adds 

 that M. Diard brought it from Sumatra. Jardine presents a most frightful copy of 

 Temminck's plate, and adds nothing to our knowledge of the bird. In fact, to this day, 

 we can boast of but little more information concerning this species. 



The great island of Sumatra has been strangely neglected by zoologists and we 

 know very little concerning its animal and bird life. This applies to the Sumatran 

 Bronze-tailed Pheasant, although its close relationship to the Malayan bird unquestion- 

 ably indicates a corresponding similarity of habits. Occasionally the bird approaches 

 outlying native villages and is snared for food. From examination of several crops we 

 know that it feeds upon small fruits and insects, but of its courtship and nesting 

 habits we are still ignorant. As in the Malay Peninsula, the Sumatran birds of this 

 group are mountain loving, and have been observed and collected at altitudes of about 

 three thousand feet or over. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male.— Head and neck dark brownish black, with the face, chin and 

 throat greyer, and the feathers of the latter with a small subterminal shaft-spot. Hind 

 neck, upper mantle and entire under-parts very dark, glossy, chocolate brown, with 

 faint, almost obsolete traces of dark cross-bars, and in favourable lights a distinct violet 

 sheen. On the mantle one or two rather conspicuous, separate, buff shaft-spots appear, the 

 distal one larger and set in a black area, but fairly concealed beneath the overlapping 



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