ANNAM OCELLATED PHEASANT loi 



gave a full-sized coloured plate of three of the four known feathers, one of which 

 was a long, ocellated, central tail-feather, and the others, less decorated, wing-feathers. 



Elliot was criticized on two counts ; first, that the shorter feathers were rectrices 

 of the Javan peafowl, and second, that it was a deplorable practice to give names 

 to fragments of birds. The first critique was shown to be false, and the second was 

 satisfactorily answered. As regards this objection to the naming of a new species 

 from fragments, the point is reasonably raised that one might go farther and object 

 to the naming of a bird unless all the phases of plumage, sexual and developmental, 

 assumed during its life, were known. The hawks, for example, present a number 

 of cases where different names have been given to the two sexes, or to colour phases 

 of the same species. The whole matter should be governed by sense and judgment. 

 I did not give a name to the breast and wings of Kuser's blood pheasant until 

 the characters were confirmed by several complete specimens ; such extension of 

 colour might have been individual. But it was right to name the Mikado pheasant 

 from the two tail-feathers, and the Ocellated Pheasant from the long central rectrice, 

 because such characteristic single feathers could not fail but represent a bird unlike 

 any heretofore known. 



The status of the bird remained undisturbed until 1882, when a Parisian 

 naturalist, M. Maingonnat, received from Commander Rheinart the perfect skin of 

 a male pheasant, which set all doubt at rest as to its distinctness. It had been 

 captured in a native trap about twenty kilometres west of Hue, the capital of French 

 Indo-China, at the foot of the Laos Mountains. The medical attache of the Hue 

 legation, who skinned the bird, " dit que la chair etait foncee, tr^s savoureuse et 

 rappelant celle du Faisan." 



M. d'Aubusson, in an article in the ** Bulletin de la Societe d'Acclimatation " for 

 1887, tells us that Commander Rheinart, in the course of his pursuit of elephants, 

 wild cattle and rhinoceros, occasionally met with stray feathers of this bird, both in 

 Cochin China and Annam, but never saw it. Many of the natives whom he 

 questioned said they too had found feathers, but likewise had never caught a glimpse 

 of the owner. Rheinart says that the Annamese prize these feathers highly and 

 use them for head-dresses. 



On the arrival of the skin of Rheinarte ocelld, M. Maingonnat made it known 

 to the French Zoological Society under the name of Argus Rheinardi, and soon 

 afterwards described it in full in the periodical called "la Science pour tous," under 

 the name of Rheinardia ocellata. He thus recognized the necessity of creating a 

 new genus for this Annam pheasant, retaining the specific name given by Jules 

 Verreaux. Still later M. Oustalet described the same specimen in two periodicals, 

 calling it first Rheinardius ocellattis and subsequently Rheinarthts. 



Several months after the receipt of the first specimen the Paris Museum 

 acquired a second from M. Le Myre de Vilers, the Governor of Cochin China. 

 Official requests for living specimens made through the Government brought a quick 

 response. A living bird was sent to the French officials at Hue by the native 

 emperor Tu-Duc. 



The royal gift was said to have been sent to the Legation in charge of an 

 escort of soldiers, and created great excitement among the crowds of onlookers. 



