231 The Amherst Pheasant. 



Since the arrival of Mr. Stone's specimens, Mr. Anderson, 

 the curator of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, has received 

 skins of both sexes from Yunan and Upper Burmah, where it 

 is not rare, the plumes being worn by the natives. 



An account of the habits of this beautiful species in a wild 

 state occurs in a letter from the Abbe Carreau, a French 

 missionary in Thibet, to the Paris Acclimatization Society. 

 He states : " The pheasant Hona-ze-Ky, the Flower Pheasant 

 of the Chinese, always inhabits very rocky places. Whenever 

 I have seen this bird flying upwards, I have always been able 

 to shoot it ; but if it was descending, I could not procure it, 

 for then it disappeared with excessive rapidity. After having 

 pursued it several times, I have found it more convenient to 

 obtain it in the same manner as the natives, who lie in wait 

 for it during the winter and catch it in snares. When the 

 mountains are covered with snow, and the streams frozen, 

 the Flower Pheasants are obhged to descend to the plains for 

 water, but as soon as they are satisfied they ascend again. 

 In the paths these birds follow each other in a line : and as 

 they go in flocks, and the snares are few in number, the 

 Chinese do not make much from the plumage and flesh of this 

 beautiful pheasant. Ta-lin-pin is situated in the 29th degree 

 of latitude N. and the 102nd degree of longitude E. : the heat 

 of these places is very great, as they are surrounded by high 

 mountains, and with very little vegetation. The mountains 

 are covered with brambles, briars, and thorns, and also with 

 grassy places ; in these spots the Amherst Pheasant is met 

 with in abundance. It is an error to think that, like other 

 pheasants, it is met with in the forests ; I have never found 

 it there, and as in the neighbourhood of Ta-lin-pin it only 

 exists where there are no forests, I doubt very much if bushy 

 tracts are to its liking. The more rocky and desolate the moun- 

 tains, the more certain are you to find the Flower Pheasants, in 

 companies composed of from twenty to thirty individuals. 



" The habits and economy of the Amherst Pheasant 

 naturally accord with the places in which it dehghts ; it 



