

PREFACE 



The study of the living pheasants in their natural environment in various parts 

 of Eastern Asia— this was the main object of the seventeen months' journey through 

 Asia and the East Indies taken by the author of this monograph. The urgency of this 

 journey sprang from the fact that the members of this most beautiful and remarkable 

 group are rapidly becoming extinct, so that the record of their habits and surroundings, 

 which is important to the understanding of their structure and evolution, will soon be 

 lost for ever. 



The literature of the group is already vast; innumerable papers and some 

 monographs have been written, but to no naturalist hitherto has the opportunity been 

 given to study nearly all of these birds in life. This opportunity came to William 

 Beebe through the generosity of Colonel Anthony R. Kuser of Bernardsville, New 

 Jersey, a member of the Board of Managers of the New York Zoological Society, and 

 one of the benefactors of the Zoological Park. Having been interested for many years 

 in developing his large collection of domesticated pheasants, it was he who suggested 

 that a monograph of the entire family of these birds be undertaken, and who offered 

 to support both the exploration and subsequent publication in a most complete manner, 

 so as to produce a work which, from the standpoint of truth, of beauty and of 

 thoroughness, should be worthy of the important place which the pheasants occupy in 

 the science of ornithology. 



The expedition was planned with the greatest care by the author and officers of the 

 Society, and the author was given a leave of absence from his duties as Curator of Birds 

 in the Zoological Park for a period of seventeen months (December 26, 1909, to 

 May 26, 191 1) for the express purpose of studying the pheasants in the field. Ceylon, 

 India, Burma, China, Japan, the Malay States, Borneo and Java were visited and the 

 pheasants of each country found and studied. Of the nineteen groups of these birds, 

 eighteen were successfully hunted with the camera, with field-glasses, and, when 

 necessary for identification, with the shot-gun. A talented artist, Mr. Bruce Horsfall, 

 accompanied the expedition during part of the journey to paint the various scenes of 

 pheasant environment. The trip, which extended over twenty countries, resulted in 

 a rare abundance of material, both literary— concerning the life histories of birds— and 

 pictorial, photographs and sketches. During the summer which followed the expedition 

 (1912) the time of the author was spent in studying the great type collections in the 

 Museums of London, of Tring, of Paris and of Berlin. 



Thus nearly one hundred species are included and systematically described. The 

 full-grown male and female characters, the changes of plumage from chick to adult, 

 the songs, courtships, battles, nests and eggs, and the general life history and relation 

 to the surroundings, both human and animal, form the chief subject matter. 



