116 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



Elliot's pheasant (P. Ellioti) was discovered in 1872 

 by the late Consul Swinhoe in the province of Chekiang, and 

 by Pere David during the following year in Fukien. The 

 latter sent a living specimen to the Jardin des Plantes in 

 Paris. The bird does not seem to be at all common. It is of 

 a wild nature, migrating at times from one district to another, 

 and, like the silver pheasant with which it is sometimes 

 found, loves the cover of wooded hills. There is a specimen 

 in the Shanghai Museum. Its total length is something less 

 than that of the ordinary pheasant. 



For the "Pheasant without a Collar" (P. decoUatiis) 

 we have to go to Shensi and then south-west to Szechwan, 

 Kweichow, Yunnan, and farther westward still towards 

 Central Asia. It is somewhat smaller than our "collared" 

 bird, and differs from it in several respects in plumage, etc., 

 but in some of the districts named it completely takes the place 

 of the finer bird. A specimen may be seen in the Museum. 



Phasiamis Sladeni is also known as P. elegans. I have 

 never seen a specimen, unless possibly a forgotten one in the 

 Natural History Museum at South Kensington. In China 

 it is confined to west Szechwan and Yunnan, and there, 

 according to Pere David, at a height of more than 4,500 ft. It 

 is only about two-thirds the length of the common pheasant. 



The Formosan pheasant (P. Fonnosaniis) has a collar 

 but is otherwise specifically different from its cousin 

 Torqtiatiis, and is differently marked in a variety of ways. 

 The Japanese pheasant known as P. versicolor, is remarkable 

 for its green tints. 



We now come to our common but much admired friend, 

 to many known especially as the China pheasant, the dainty 

 gentleman of our up-country search, P. Torquafiis of the 

 white collar. It has already been remarked that P. colchictis, 

 the pheasant of the western lands, is practically shut off 

 from us by the meridian of Calcutta. West of that he rules, 

 east of it the pheasant world is divided as we have seen 

 amongst a gorgeous variety of remarkablj' handsome birds. 

 But commonest of all these, and certainly not the least 

 beautiful, is our well known friend, the bird which earlj^ 

 residents "in the country" about Shanghai, that is to say 

 near where the Honan Road runs now, used to see in the early 

 mornings feeding on the lawn ! 



People who only know pheasants as they are brought from 

 the market or exhibited in cabinets have but a very partial 

 idea of their true beauty. That can be realized only when 

 a perfect specimen can be seen at its best in its own natural 

 surroundings. It takes but an hour or two after death for 

 mOich of the glory to disappear. In England, where preserved 

 pheasants are almost as tame as barn-dooi' fowls, there islittle 



