HIMALAYAN BLOOD PARTRIDGE 



Ithagenes cruentus (Hardwicke) 



NAMES.— Generic : Ithagenes, of a true race, Greek, Wayevrjs, legitimate ; Specific : cruentus, Latin, cruentus, 

 stained with blood ; English : Blood Pheasant or Partridge, from the crimson spots on the breast ; French : 

 Francolin ensanglaute' ; German : Bergfasan, Indischer Blutfasan, Grunhuhn ; Vernacular : Somong-pho (Lepcha, 

 Sikhim), Semo (Tibetan and Bhutian, Bhutan), Chilime (Nepal). 



BRIEF DESCRIPTION. — Male : Bluish-grey above, with white shaft-streaks ; wing-coverts greenish ; a buff cap; 

 greenish below with crimson throat, under tail-coverts and breast spots, the latter reduced or absent in birds from 

 southern Sikhim. Female : Reddish brown, finely mottled with black ; forehead, face and throat cinnamon ; 

 crown and nape blue-grey. 



Ithagenes cruentus cruentus. 



TYPE. — Male; Pkasianus cruentus Hardwicke, " Nepaul," Trans. Linn. Soc. XIII. 1822, p. 237. Female: 

 Phasianus gardneri Hardwicke, " The snowy mountains north of the Valley of Nepaul," Trans. Linn. Soc. XV. 

 1827, p. 167. Both male and female types are in the British Museum. 



Ithagenes cruentus affinis. 

 TYPE. — Male and female; Beebe, "British Sikhim, near Nathang," Zoologica, I. No. 10, 1912, p. 191. Both 

 male and female types are in the American Museum, New York. 

 Range. — Nepal and Sikhim. 



THE BLOOD PARTRIDGE IN ITS WILD HOME 



I waited, motionless, crouching in the shadow of a great frost-split boulder. 

 Behind me, the wall of a jagged cliff rose straight toward the heavens — a giant wall 

 that seemed to set me apart utterly from the world that lay beyond. Within a morn- 

 ing's march of me was the little world made up of my camp and my men, and far away, 

 across wastes of land and water, was the great world of civilized men, where countless 

 human beings were creating and solving the small complexities of their daily life. But 

 I was alone. I had come into a new land, and the gates behind me were closed. 



Far overhead, against the intense blue of the sky, a Himalayan skylark hung on 

 fluttering wings, sending its jubilant notes down to the sloping snow-fields beneath. 

 It was only a dark mote above me, but its melody came through the thin, icy air 

 startlingly beautiful and clear. It was springtime, and the small songster felt called 

 upon to tell the joyous fact to the eastern Himalayas. Indeed, there was no need for 

 it to carol such an obvious thing, for spring was everywhere for all to see — but then, 

 many needless things are beautiful. 



The arctic meadow which swept downward toward the deep gorges of the Chang- 

 thap was dotted, between snow patches, with the warm pink of new-blown primroses. 

 These delicate little flowers bloom and live out their short lives under the frown of 

 eternal winter. Rising high above them, clear cut as diamond against sapphire, were 

 the wonderful peaks of snow — Kinchinjunga the indescribable, and the scarcely less 

 glorious Kabru, silent, mysterious — so isolated that they seem wholly detached from the 

 earth beneath. Even beside me, winter was fighting for a stronghold ; in the purple 



