CHAPTER XIY. 



PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE COVERT (CONTINUED). 



EEEVES'S PHEASANT {FSASIANUS 

 BEEVES II). 



% A.'SuGO POLO, the old Venetian traveller, who returned to 

 I-' Venice in 1298, after a residence of seventeen years in 

 Tartary, was evidently acquainted with the magnificent species, 

 now known as Eeeves's Pheasant. In the language of his 

 original translator, whose quaint orthography I have followed, 

 he is made to state, "There be plenty of Eeysants and very greate 

 for 1 of them is as big as 2 of ours, with tayles of eyght, 9 and 

 tenne spannes long, from the Kingdom of Erguyl or Arguill, 

 the W. Side of Tartary." This description can only be applicable 

 to the species now under consideration. Erom this time, until described by Latham 

 and Temminck, this bird was comparatively unknown, except from the inspection 

 of Chinese drawings. Sonnini, who preceded Temminck, concludes his account by 

 stating that it is very possible that the bird, of which he had merely seen pictures, 

 "exists only in the imagination of the Chinese painters." Singularly enough the 

 species was, for thirteen years, namely, from 1808 to 1821, living in the aviary of 

 Mr. Beale, at Macao. Dr. Bennett, in his " Wanderings in New South Wales," 

 states, " In Mr. Beale's splendid aviary and garden, at Macao, the beautiful 

 Phasianus veneratus of Temminck, the P. reevesii of Gray, now commonly known 

 by the name of the Reeves's Pheasant, was seen. It is the Chee-kai of the 

 Chinese. 



" The longest tail feathers of the bird are 6ft. in length, and are placed in the 

 caps of the players when acting military characters. This I observed at Canton, 

 where some of the beautiful tail feathers (rather in a dirty condition, like the actors 

 themselves, who in their tawdry dresses, reminded me of the chimney-sweepers in 

 London on a May-day) were placed erect on each side of their caps as a decoration. 

 "The Chinese do not venerate this bird, as was first supposed, and which 

 may have caused Temminck to bestow on it the name of veneratus ; but it is 



