go A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
8. ApuLT Mare.—The second male I shot on sight, and at such close range that I 
nearly blew it to pieces. At first glance it seemed to be a silver pheasant 
(xycthemerus), and stood out sharply from all its companions on both the 
occasions when I watched it working downhill. The second time I had my 
gun and secured it at once. It proved to be a very dark representative of what 
has been called »pponz, but differing in having greenish, instead of scarlet legs 
and feet. 
All this astounding variety of kaleege I found within two miles of the dak bungalow 
at Pongatong, associating together, and, as I have said, with satisfactory evidence of 
being in families. Even if the birds were of no immediate relationship, the fact of their 
remarkable variation is none the less indicative of hybridism. This is typical of what I 
found to exist in other parts of Burma. The Arakan country and Annam I did not 
visit, and hence I cannot speak at first hand with regard to the birds which inhabit those 
regions. 
All the specimens which I gathered in northern Burma tend to exhibit this 
individual variation and blending of character, and in all my observations there is 
nothing to show any pronounced uniformity in the forms I have mentioned. But while 
thus being compelled to consider these as unworthy of specific validity, there is an 
interesting phase of the subject in regard to certain of the other forms. Some of these 
pheasants, which apparently owe their peculiar colour and pattern to the crossing of two 
feral species, seem to have found more or less isolated regions where they have become 
more or less established. It is difficult to know exactly how to treat these, and in my 
first review of this genus (“ Zoologica,” Review of the Genus Geznaeus) I admitted 
tentatively four forms or sub-species-or fixed hybrids. But, as I have already said, more 
thorough examination of all the specimens available has shown me that it is a case of 
degree, not of kind, and as long as specimens typical of one of the three main species 
lineatus, nycthemerus and horsfieldi have been recorded from the heart of the inter- 
vening areas containing the hybrids, I see no reason to consider any of them as worthy 
of a name. 
The sphere of influence existing between Aorsfieldi on the north-west and /ineatus 
on the south-east is populated by an interesting series of hybrids, which, except in the 
case of the irregular mountain chains and cross valleys, show a fairly gradual gradation 
from the one to the other parent species. 
I have chosen Cuvier’s kaleege as the wild pheasant hybrid representing one of the 
first links in this chain of cross-breeding between true orsfieldi and fineatus. In shape 
and in general colouring it is similar to orsfield, being mostly bluish black with 
a white rump-fringe. But the feathers of the upper body-plumage, wings and tail are 
all finely and regularly pencilled with wavy white lines. ‘The markings are like those of 
the Chinese silver kaleege reversed. The female resembles the female of Lorsfield, but 
the tail feathers are dominately rufous, mottled with black, the outer pairs being black 
toward the tips, and elsewhere pencilled with fine white lines. The average would seem 
to be 75% of horsfieldi, and 25% of Lineatus blood. Specimens more or less like this 
are found scattered through the middle and northern Arakan Hills, extending into 
Chittagong. 
