CHAPTER XXIII. 

 The Argus Pheasant 



(Argus giganteun). 



THE Argus Pheasant, as it was termed by Linnaeus, is 

 undoubtedly one of the most magnificent of the family 

 of pheasants. Its native haunts are the forests of 

 Malacca and Siam, the Malay Peninsula, and Southern Tenas- 

 serim : it is also found in Sumatra. It is so extremely shy in its 

 habits that it is rarely, if ever, shot, even by native hunters, 

 who nevertheless manage to secure numbers by snaring the 

 birds. 



Dr. A. E. Wallace, in his most interesting work on the 

 Malay Archipelago, describes his journey into the heart of 

 the Argus country, and writing of Mount Ophir, fifty miles 

 eastward of Malacca, states : 



" The place where we first encamped, at the foot of the 

 mountain, being very gloomy, we chose another in a kind 

 of swamp, near a stream overgrown with zingiberaceous 

 plants, in which a clearing was easily made. Here our men 

 built two little huts without sides, that would just shelter 

 us from the rain, and we lived in them for a week, shooting 

 and insect-hunting, and roaming about the forest at the foot 

 of the mountain. This was the country of the great Argus 

 Pheasant, and we continually heard its cry. On asking the 

 old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he told me that, though 

 he had been twenty years shooting birds in these forests, he 

 had never yet shot one, and had never seen one except after 

 it had been caught. The bird is so exceedingly shy and wary, 

 and runs along the ground in the densest parts of the forest 

 so quickly, that it is impossible to get near it ; and its sober 



