210 PHUASANTS FOB COVEBTS AND AVIABIES. 



The upper part of the body is white, pencilled with the most 

 delicate tracery of black. The whole of the under parts are 

 bluish-black, the legs and feet red, the spurs well-developed 

 and usually very sharp. The female is smaller than the male ; 

 her general colour is brown, mottled with a darker tint ; the 

 crest and tail are much less ample than those of the cock ; the 

 outer tail feathers are light, marked with black on the outer 

 webs. The female in confinem^ent usually lays from eight to 

 fourteen eggs, and the young are most easily reared under a 

 common fowl. 



The genus Eiiplocamus , to which the Silver Pheasant 

 belongs, includes several species. They are distinguished 

 from the true pheasants by the crest, by the more fowl-like 

 form of the tail, and by the males (and sometimes even the 

 females) being strongly and sharply spurred. The comm.on 

 species, the kaleege or kalij of India, breed very freely, even 

 in confinement, but are not adapted for turning into the 

 covert, as they rise with difficulty, and their flesh is not equal 

 for culinary purposes to that of the ordinary pheasant. A 

 correspondent writes : — " I have been shooting lately in 

 preserves where, amongst other game, I had the pleasure of 

 seeing the kaleege on the wing. The birds had been bred 

 under hens from eggs taken from old birds in a mew, treated 

 in the same manner as pheasants, and were at this time — the 

 last week in December — practically as wild as the pheasants 

 in the same coverts. A more unsporting-looking bird on the 

 wing I never met with, or a more unsatisfactory one to knock 

 down. Its flight is low, never rising more than eight or ten 

 feet from the ground, and therefore in a line with everybody's 

 head, consequently a most dangerous bird in a hattue. Its 

 flight is more like that of a coot or moorhen than any bird I 

 know; the slow, noiseless flight, and the dark plumage, 

 making it very like the former bird. It runs much before 

 rising— is very savage, driving away the other game birds, and 

 is the most unsatisfactory game bird I ever saw. My friend 

 with whom I was shooting is therefore killing them down." 



