CHAPTER XIV. 

 Reeves's Pheasant 



(Pkasianus reevesii) . 



MARCO POLO, the old Venetian traveller, who returned 

 to Venice in 1298, after a residence of seventeen years in 

 Tartary, was evidently acquainted with the magnificent 

 species now known as Reeves's Pheasant. In the language of 

 his original translator, whose quaint orthography I have 

 followed, he is made to state : " There be plenty of Feysants 

 and very greate, for 1 of them is as big as 2 of ours, with tayles 

 of eight, 9 and tenne spannes long, from the Kingdom of 

 Erguyl or Arguill, the W. side of Tartary." This description 

 can be aj^plicable only to the species now under consideration. 

 From 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, 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 P veneratus of Temminck, the 

 P. reevesii of Graj', 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 



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