MALAYAN CRESTED FIREBACK 
Lophura rufa (Raffles) 
NAMES.—Specific: rufa, from the Latin rufus, red, with reference to the colour of the fiery back. English : 
Malayan Crested Fireback ; Vieillot’s Fireback. French: Faisan de Vieillot. German: Rothriickenfasan. Native: 
Pégar, or Ayam Pégar (Malay and Sakai) ; Ayam siul [Whistling fowl] (Malay). 
BRIEF DESCRIPTION.—Male: General plumage black, glossed with purplish-blue; lower back and rump 
fiery bronze-red ; feathers of the sides and flanks with white or chestnut shaft-stripes ; middle pairs of tail-feathers 
white. A tufted crest with long bare shafts. Facial skin and wattles blue; feet red. Female: Rich chestnut 
above, faintly mottled with black; throat white; breast chestnut edged with white ; remaining under plumage dark 
brown, widely margined with white. Crest shorter than in male. Facial skin blue; feet red. 
- RANGE—From southern Siam and Tenasserim southward ; Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. 
GENERAL ACCOUNT 
Tuis is decidedly a low-country bird, and I doubt if it ever ascends to the higher 
altitudes of the Malayan or Sumatran mountains. In Siam I know of records only 
from the extreme south, and it is improbable that it overlaps the range of dard. Even 
in the low Malayan coastal country of the west and the central Pahang region drained 
by the tributaries of the river of the same name, where I have observed this species, 
its distribution is far from regular. Great stretches which seem eminently suited to 
its requirements are apparently uninhabited by it, where the natives have no 
knowledge of the bird. Then again, not far distant, every child will recognize its 
picture and shout “Ayam pégar!” and a few days of careful search will reveal 
traces of a family or flock. Nevertheless, in spite of its comparative abundance in 
some areas, my search for the Malayan Crested Fireback proved one of the most 
trying of my experiences with wild pheasants. By the calendar it was still the dry 
season; by the rain gauge it was the height of the rainy period. In the open forest 
where we expected to find this species we neither saw nor heard it. 
Years ago, Malays or Sakais made numerous clearings throughout many parts 
of the jungle, planted some crop, and then deserted the clearing for another. Many 
of these were in valleys, close to the bed of small streams. Such places are now 
covered with a tangle of thorny palms and enmeshed vines, and in these all but 
impenetrable thickets, the beautiful Crested Fireback elects to spend most of his time. 
All trace of the former savage cultivator of the soil has vanished—hut, tools and 
pottery. But now and then, from the heart of some such tangle as I have described, 
a pair of house crows will fly up croaking hoarsely. Through all the years they or 
their descendants have clung to this bit of human handiwork, deep in the jungle 
and far from the haunts of living human beings. They form a parallel to the little 
Guiana house wrens which one finds still haunting old, long-deserted and overgrown 
huts in the heart of the British Guiana forest.* 
1 Beebe, “Our Search for a Wilderness,” 1910, p. 307. 
122 
