ARGUSIANUS 

 ARGUS PHEASANTS 



Order GALLIFORMES 



Family PHASIANIDAE 

 Subfamily ARGUSIANINAE 



Genus ARGUSIANUS 



The Argus Pheasants are in many ways the most extremely ornamented and 

 specialized of all their family. The adult males from beak to tail-tip may measure 

 six and a half feet, although two-thirds of this is taken up by the central tail-feathers. 



These birds are near relatives of the ocellated pheasants, but far more specialized. 

 The sides of the head, the throat and the fore neck are bare and rather highly coloured, 

 and the ocelli on the secondaries are marvels of design and shading, resembling marble- 

 like spheres revolving in separate sockets, and all with high lights as exquisite and 

 effective as if carefully planned for some exact and delicate purpose. 



The first primary is the shortest, and the tenth the longest. The secondaries are 

 greatly elongated, far exceeding the primaries, the eighth and ninth being twice as long 

 as the first. The tail is composed of twelve feathers, the two central ones of relatively 

 enormous length, being more than four times the length of the outer pair, and slightly 

 twisted near the tip. 



The males make and keep clear a large dancing arena, to which they call the 

 females, and where they show off their marvellous frontal courtship display. Spurs are 

 absent. The tarsus is much longer than the middle toe and claw. 



The females are smaller and less specialized in plumage and in colour. Two white 

 eggs are laid on dead leaves upon the ground. 



ARGUSIANUS 



Type 

 Argus Temminck (nee Boh., Moll. 1761 ; nee Scop., Lep. 1777) Pig. et Gall. II. 1813, p. 410 . A. argus. 

 y4r^«j-/^««i- Rafinesque, Analyse, 181 5, p. 219 . . . . . . . . . A. argus. 



Argusanus Bonap. C. R. XLII. 1856, p. 878 .......... A. argus, 



Argusa Kelham, Ibis, 188 1, p. 530 . . .A. argus. 



^r^«j-z«/«j- Oustal. Bull. Soe. Philom. (7), VI. 1882, p. 254 A. argus. 



The Argus Pheasants inhabit the Malay Peninsula from Lower Tenasserim and 

 Siam southward, Sumatra, and the interior of Borneo. 



VOL. IV 113 Q 



