CHAPTER IV 



Prince of Wales Pheasant {Pkasiamis Principalis) 



This is a distinct species of Pheasant, resembling in many of 

 its features the MongoHan, but has certain characteristics 

 which sharply define it from the last-named species. Judging 

 from the locality to which it is indigenous, it ought to prove 

 of the greatest service in game preserves where the geo- 

 graphical conditions are inclined to be of a swampy nature, 

 and it is rather surprising that it has not been more freely 

 introduced into British coverts than it has been ; in fact, up 

 to the present time, this species has been kept more in the 

 hands of breeders of fancy Pheasants than in those engaged 

 in the preservation of game in our woodlands. Its strong 

 flight, vigorous constitution, beauty of plumage, prolificacy, 

 and fertility of the eggs, renders it particularly suitable to 

 the British game-preservers. Its nomenclature, Phasianus 

 Principalis, has been derived from the fact that a pair of 

 skins of this species belonging to the late King Edward VII., 

 then Prince of Wales, were exhibited before the Zoological 

 Society during 1885, and brought over from Afghanistan. 

 The Prince of Wales Pheasant inhabits the banks of the 

 Bala Murghab, in the swampy districts of which it has 

 been very abundant. Its environment is vastly different 

 to that of most other species of Pheasant, in which the 

 desire for seclusion in coverts and hedge-rows is so distinctly 

 manifest. 



In length this species is similar to that of P. Colchicus, 



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