xxii INTRODUCTION 



Asia, perhaps near the Himalayas, but during the Miocene a wave of life flowed from 

 Asia into Europe, and the fossils which have been found were doubtless of members of 

 this invasion. In the course of time these pheasants died out in Europe and all those 

 which are now found there have been transported from Asia by man. 



Our knowledge of the lives of the pheasants has thus far been of the most 

 fragmentary character. Forty-five years ago the sum total of human knowledge in 

 this field was crystallized in a " Monograph of the Phasianidae" by Dr. Daniel Giraud 

 Elliot. In my research, his monograph has served as a starting-point. Since 1872 

 no publication of importance has appeared which has been devoted to these birds 

 alone. The only work of wider scope worthy of mention from the point of view 

 of originality is Hume and Marshall's "The Game Birds of India, Burma and Ceylon," 

 published in 1879. From the point of view of life histories this work has been 

 copied systematically ever since, and very little added. 



Starting out with the scattered information revealed by a search of ornithological 

 literature, I have endeavoured to round out as fully as possible the lives of these 

 wonderful birds. And with whatever success I may have attained, is always the 

 synchronous realization of how much there is still to learn. Of their evolution, 

 of their forms, colours, habits, enemies, instincts, I can present as yet the merest 

 outline. Their dangerously little knowledge gave to the earlier naturalists dogmatic 

 assurance in the face of all these tremendous problems. To-day we have come 

 to have the greatest faith in the scientist who dares to say " I don't know"; who, 

 without setting forth half-considered theories of his own, is willing to search for 

 the modicum of truth which lies hidden at the bottom of some of the even more 

 improbable theories championed by his confreres ; and finally, who has the intuition 

 to realize and the courage to admit the operation of unknown factors, which it is the 

 object of our life work to discover. 



My views on the evolution of the pheasants have become ever broader, more 

 plastic as my studies have progressed. I lean less and less upon any one explanation 

 or theory, and seem to see cases of the operation of several, and the shadowy indica- 

 tions of others of which as yet we have no concrete conception. Again I emphasize 

 the fact that we may be certain that there was no such thing as linear development 

 of group after group. Whatever or however changes have taken place they have 

 been radial : variations in all directions ; attempts to make successes in life in every 

 conceivable niche and manner. The true pheasants, typified by the so-called 

 English Pheasant, show, between their numerous forms, gradations so delicate that 

 there is no question of their origin other than by continuous variations. In the 

 Black-throated Golden and the Black-shouldered Peafowl we have undisputable 

 cases of mutation. In the origin and significance of the successive changes of 

 plumage of the White-tailed Wattled Pheasant of Borneo ; of the train of the 

 Peacock and the wings of the Argus ; of the clothing of a dull pheasant hen with all 

 the glories of her mate simply as the result of disease or age, we are in the face of 

 mysteries, wholly inexplicable. The explanation of any one of these would satisfy the 

 raison ditre of a lifetime of labour. But one must be content to acquire merit 

 by adding even a handful of material to the great structure, and so it only be 

 sincere and true it shall be well worth while. 



