SCLATER'S IMPEYAN PHEASANT 



Lophophorus sclateri Jerdon 



Names. — Specific : sclateri, for Dr. P. L. Sclater, the eminent English ornithologist. English : Sclater's 

 Impeyan, Crestless Monal. French : Lophophore sclater. German : Stahlhuhn. 



Brief DESCRIPTION. — Male : Upper plumage iridescent, lower black ; head with short, recurved green 

 feathers ; neck copper ; mantle and inner wing-coverts green changing to purple ; outer coverts coppery or green ; 

 back, rump and tail-coverts white ; tail dark chestnut, with a broad, white, terminal band, black mottled with white 

 at base. Female : Lores, chin and throat white ; head, face and neck black with V-shaped buff marks ; mantle 

 and back dark umber, with pale rufous shaft-stripe and mottling. Wings more rufous ; tail black, banded and 

 tipped with white ; lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts pale grey with fine, irregular dark bands. Lower 

 parts olive, finely vermiculated with pale buff. 



Type. — " Mishmi Hills, Upper Assam." Jerdon, The Ibis, 1870, p. 147. Now in the collection of the 

 British Museum. 



RANGE. — Mishmi and Abor Hills eastward into the mountains of northern Burma and Yunnan. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



Almost nothing is known of the Himalayas east of Bhutan and north of Assam. 

 They are inhabited by fierce tribes who allow no strangers to enter, or at least to 

 leave their domain. It is from this mysterious hinterland that the hill tribes, the 

 Mishmis, the Abors and others come down, when they venture to appear for purposes 

 of trading. Every year a fair is held at Sadiya, at the extreme head of the Assam 

 Valley, and this is attended by many of these savage people. Among other things, 

 they occasionally bring with them skins or even live birds, and it is in this way that 

 the few specimens of Sclater's Impeyan have been secured. As far as I know I am the 

 first white man who has seen or shot this species in its native haunts. Thus may we 

 account for the absence of a single fact in literature regarding its wild life or even more 

 than a general vague idea of what region it inhabits. 



Wholly unexpectedly I met with Sclater's Impeyan in north-western Yunnan, close 

 to the Burmese border, when studying the pheasants of that region in the winter of 19 10, 

 and am therefore fortunate enough to be able to relate something at first hand of the 

 bird in its home. This is so meagre, however, that I shall give the experience just as I 

 find it in my journal, with all extraneous details which in any way may help to picture 

 the environment of this rare pheasant. 



One very characteristic feature of the high mountain slopes along the extreme 

 northern Yunnan-Burma frontier is the lasting character of the scars made by the native 

 millet farms of past decades. In place of the splendid oaks and chestnuts, there springs 

 up a terrible stubby growth of bamboo, to penetrate which is a punishment leaving 

 lasting wounds and complete fatigue. Yet one must force a way through many such 

 zones to find the pheasants which here make their home. 



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