INTRODUCTION xxix 



established themselves in Formosa, Hainan, and in central Indo-China. They are 

 essentially birds of a temperate climate, and in Siam and Tenasserim they give place to 

 their truly tropical relatives, the Crested Firebacks (Lophura). These brilliant pheasants 

 occupy the western part of the Malay Peninsula and the eastern half of Sumatra and 

 almost all of Borneo. Paralleling them in the Malayan and Sumatran distribution are 

 the Crestless Firebacks {Acomus), which in Borneo, however, are found only in the 

 coastal region of Sarawak. The superlatively specialized member of this super-genus is 

 the White-tailed Wattled Pheasant {Lobiophasis) of central Borneo. 



From this extremely localized species we reach the opposite extreme in the Jungle- 

 fowl (Gallus), birds of comparatively low open jungles. These birds range over Ceylon, 

 south and central India, the Himalayan terai, Assam, Burma and throughout all the 

 countries to the southward, on into Sumatra and Java with its string of lesser islands to 

 the eastward. 



The distribution of the isolated group of Koklass Pheasants {Pucrasid) recalls that 

 of the Tragopans, in the mountains of the north, with unaccountable gaps which must 

 formerly at least have been occupied or traversed. 



The Cheer [Catreus) calls the western Himalayas its home, and is almost sur- 

 rounded by the wide-ranging True Pheasants {Phasianus). In a host of confusingly 

 intergraded forms these range from the shores of the Black Sea in the Caucasus east- 

 ward through northern Persia, Turkestan and throughout China into Korea and 

 Manchuria. Japan and Formosa are their island homes, and to the south-west they dip 

 into eastern Burma. 



The gorgeous Long-tailed Pheasants (Syrmaticus) are geographically scattered 

 units — Burma, central China, south-eastern China, Japan and Formosa ; as isolated as 

 are the various forms themselves. 



The Golden and Amherst Pheasants [Chrysolophus] are also isolated geographically 

 and physically, in the mountains of western and central China. 



The two groups of Peacock Pheasants show nicely correlated habitats. The rare 

 and less specialized Bronze-tailed birds (Ckakurus) are limited to the mountain ranges 

 in the centre of the Malay States and of Sumatra, while the more typical Peacock 

 Pheasants {Polyplectron) inhabit eastern Sumatra, the lowlands of the Malay States and 

 northward throughout Indo-China, Siam and Burma as far as the terai of the eastern 

 Himalayas. 



The Ocellated Argus {Rheinardius) are also the less specialized members of this 

 wonderful type of bird, and our imperfect knowledge of their haunts compels us at 

 present to limit them to central Indo-China and the central mountains of the Malay 

 States. The True Argus (Argusianus) extends over all the Malay Peninsula, eastern 

 Sumatra, and Borneo except along the coast. 



The Peafowl (Pavo) are wide-ranging, covering all India and Ceylon, Assam, 

 Burma, Siam, Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula. Sumatra, by some strange freak 

 of dispersal, is uninhabited, but in Java, lying many miles to the south, the birds are 

 numerous. 



Reviewing the distribution of the pheasants as a whole, we find that the nineteen 

 genera group themselves as follows : — 



