TEMMINCK'S TRAGOPAN 



Tragopan temmincki (J. E. Gray) 



Names. — Specific : temmincki, for Coenraad Jacob Temminck, the noted Dutch ornithologist. English : 

 Temminck's Horned Pheasant, Chinese Crimson Tragopan. French : Tragopan de Temminck. German : 

 Hornhuhn. Vernacular: Oua-oua-ky (Waa-fowl) ; Ko-ky, Kiao-ky (Horned Fowl); Sin-tsiou-ky (Starred Fowl); 

 T'so-che (Chinese for longevity, referring to the lappet pattern, which resembles this character). 



BRIEF DESCRIPTION. — Male : Forepart of head, band around neck and throat, black ; long crest, nape and 

 breast orange red; above and below dark Indian red, each feather on the upper parts with a black-rimmed, pearl- 

 grey spot, which on the lower plumage is expanded into a large grey patch, with red edge. Female : Above 

 mottled dark and buff, set off by light central areas and round black patches on most of the feathers ; crown 

 streaked ; chin and throat buffy ; feathers of lower parts with large, oval, white, central ocelli, set in a border of 

 yellowish buff. 



Type. — "China," J. E. Gray, Illustrations of Indian Zoology, I. 1830-32, plate L. Now in the collection 

 of the British Museum. 



RANGE. — Central China, including southern Shensi, western Hupeh, almost all of Szechuan, and northern 

 Yunnan and Burma. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



Temminck's Tragopan is the most widely distributed of all its congeners. Although 

 many scores of these birds have been exported alive from China, almost all have been 

 snared by natives, and we have very few authentic records of exact localities. Pere David 

 gives as its range south-west China to, and including, central Shensi. Several explorers 

 have obtained it in the vicinity of Tatienlu, Szechuan, and live birds were brought by 

 Mr. Medhurst from the mountains north of Hankow. Other records extend its haunts 

 eastward to the Mishmi and Abu Hills and close to Sadiya in extreme northern Assam. 

 Swinging round northern Burma we find it on the Yunnan frontier as far south as 

 Sadon, near which, in Burmese territory, three Tragopans have been shot. Though 

 I searched this region carefully, in December 19 10, I did not see a single Temminck's 

 Tragopan until later, when I entered Yunnan. My southernmost record was a little 

 south of 258 north latitude, about twenty miles north of the Bhamo-Tengyueh trail, 

 at an elevation of some seven thousand feet. 



With these scattered records, together with a general knowledge of the altitudinal 

 distribution of the bird, we may safely plot this Tragopan's wild home as lying within 

 an elongated rectangle, extending north-east and south-west, the upper two corners 

 respectively in south-central Shensi and central Hupeh, the lower corners at Sadiya in 

 Assam, and Sadon, Burma. The lower long side will extend north-eastward across 

 the north-west corner of Yunnan and across Szechuan, some distance north of the 

 Yangtze River. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



To show the meagreness of our knowledge concerning the wild life of Temminck's 

 Tragopan I shall quote every fact which I have been able to unearth in the literature 

 of this species. 



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