xxviii INTRODUCTION 



southward to Wallace's Line. On the north, however, the pheasants extend over the 

 south Asiatic portion of the Palaearctic Region. 



In the Himalayas the Blood Partridge has been observed at an altitude of sixteen 

 thousand feet, over three miles above the level of the sea, while in Java I have seen 

 Junglefowl feeding in tidal pools at the very edge of the breakers. Unlike members 

 of the Perdicinae, such as the common quail of the Old World, which migrates from 

 Europe to Africa each autumn, pheasants are in no sense birds of passage. As a rule, 

 they are not even great wanderers, exceptions being the Silver and Reeves, which 

 occasionally disappear from an entire district for a year or more, temporarily changing 

 their nesting as well as their feeding haunts. In the north there is a well-marked 

 seasonal migration due to the advance of the deep snows of winter. In the tropical 

 zone of distribution more or less regular seasonal movements occur and may be caused 

 by either of two reasons, the first of which is the fruiting of certain trees providing a 

 local abundance of food, to which the pheasants of the surrounding country flock in 

 large numbers. An excellent example is the Ceylon Junglefowl, which shifts into the 

 hills in great numbers when the nilloo berries ripen. A second stimulus to changing 

 ground is the breeding season, when the birds leave their more open haunts and those 

 near villages and native fields, and betake themselves to the deepest part of the jungle 

 to make their nests. In the tropical species a regular diurnal movement is very general, 

 due to temperature, the birds feeding morning and evening more or less in the open, 

 and retiring to the dense shelter of shady undergrowth to spend the heat of the day. 



The irregularity of distribution of the Blood Partridges (Ithagenes) is doubtless the 

 result of two causes, first apparently because of our superficial knowledge of the fauna 

 of the interior of Asia, and actually because of the extremely high elevation at which 

 these birds live. From the higher ranges of eastern Nepal these birds extend through 

 south-eastern Tibet, dipping a little way south into Yunnan. They have found 

 lodgment on an isolated mountain peak in south-central Szechuan. Then, north- 

 eastward, we find another form of these sturdy creatures braving the rigours of the 

 Nan-shan and Ala-shan Mountains in Kansu and Shensi. 



The Tragopans {Tragopan) are another mountain-loving group, and their distribu- 

 tion corresponds quite closely to the chief ranges of Asia. One species, however, has 

 made its way well over Assam, and another occupies an indefinitely known territory in 

 south-central China, ranging over rather low mountains. 



The resplendent Monals or Impeyans [Lophophorns] form a third essentially 

 Palaearctic genus, more conservatively Himalayan than either of the two preceding, 

 but, in general outlines, recalling the distribution of both. 



The Eared-Pheasants {Crossoptiloii) are, perhaps, the most northerly of all. Their 

 southern limits are the banks of the Yangtze in Yunnan, and from here they range 

 northward between Tibet and China, and north-eastward to beyond Pekin. 



The following four genera are undoubtedly inter-related, and it is interesting to 

 keep this in mind in considering their distribution. The great group of Kaleege and 

 Silver Pheasants {Gennaeus) are intermediate in their haunts, living neither at very high 

 elevations nor often descending to the low plains. They are decidedly pheasants of 

 the hills, or of the foot-hills of the greater ranges. We find them along the entire 

 Himalayan terai, throughout Assam, Burma and southern China. They have 



