BIRD ACTORS AND THEATRES 237 



remains poised until the limb swings back under- 

 neath him. Sometimes a group of these actors sud- 

 denly fly into the clouds and seem utterly to aban- 

 don themselves to the fury of the wind. They are 

 driven like snowflakes hither and thither, at last re- 

 covering themselves and darting back to their old 

 positions. 



Perhaps the argus pheasant is the most remark- 

 able as well as the most beautiful of all feathered 

 actors. While its plumage is not so gorgeous as that 

 of the peacock, yet it is unquestionably the best 

 dressed actor in existence. As its name implies, it 

 has a hundred eyes in its plumage ; and its second- 

 ary wing feathers are enormously elongated and of 

 great breadth. It is a native of Sumatra and the 

 Indo-Malay mainland. The beauty of this bird 

 consists chiefly in the great number of "eye-like" 

 spots, so coloured and arranged that they appear, 

 when held in a certain position, like a ball lying in 

 a cup. The prunary quills are extraordinarily 

 beautiful; the colourings are of delicate brown, 

 dotted with soft dark spots, and there is a darker 

 quiU whose outer margin is surrounded by a band of 

 lighter colour than the other parts. The plumage 

 is thickly covered with tiny dark spots not unlike 

 certain of the guinea fowl. The tail of the argus 

 pheasant, like its wing-feathers, is of great length 



