170 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
is the comb. The compressed tail is found in Lophura, Acomus, Lobiophasis and 
others ; the lateral wattles and the hackles in Chrysolophus, and the median wattle in 
Tvagopan. 
The four species fall into two quite distinct but unequal divisions, good subgenera 
they might be called; first, gallus, lafayetti and sonnerati, and second, varius. These 
have been considered as two genera (Gal/us and Creagrius) by a few writers, e.g. Ghigi, 
1903. Varius possesses the peculiarities of a smooth-edged comb, a median throat 
wattle, truncated neck hackles and an extra pair of rectrices. Taking the group as a 
whole, however, the hiatus between the four species and the nearest related genera 
seems much greater than between the two groups themselves. So I choose to keep 
them together. And here comes in the question of logicality; whether by doing this 
I have not been somewhat illogical in comparison with other generic divisions. This 
is of not the slightest moment to me. No two genera of the Phasianidae or any other 
group of organisms, as now isolated by time and space on the earth, are separated from 
each other by exactly the same intervals of character distinction. Classification, we all 
admit, is merely the make-shift, incident upon, and made necessary or indeed possible 
by, our ignorance of intervening forms. Hence relative clarity of interrelations is its 
sole aim. In this instance the genus Ga//ws, considered as embracing all four forms, 
expresses much more exactly the homogeneity of the quartet as a whole than would 
the isolation of varius, such segregation setting it as far apart from Gallus as is the 
genus Chrysolophus. 
There is no doubt that the Red Junglefowl alone is the direct ancestor of all of 
our domestic poultry, so this question is removed from the discussion. Study of the 
plumage of the four species shows a tangle of characters, which can be logically oriented 
only when we think of all four birds having descended from some form quite different 
and much more generalized than any of them are to-day. For example, taking the 
cocks first, the ventral plumage brings ga//us and varius close together; the dorsal 
surface shows a close similarity between gad/us and lafayetti. Sonnerati, while it has 
a general body plumage of a much more generalized pattern and coloration than any 
of the others, has hackles and wing-coverts more specialized than in the other three, 
the peculiar sealing-wax-like spots deserving of as great distinction as some would give 
to varius for its peculiar characters. 
The hens, on the contrary, show propinquities entirely unlike those of the respective 
cocks. The ventral plumage associates closely /afayettd and sonnerati, while the 
dorsal patterns and colours indicate an affinity between gal/us and sonnerati, and the 
generalized black and white wing-bars link /afayett7 and varius. 
GALLUS 
Type. 
Gallus Linnaeus, Faun. Suecica, 1746, p. 61 : : : : : . G. gallus. 
Alector Klein, Hist. Av. Prodr. 1750, p. 111 . f . : : . G. gallus. 
Creagrius Gloger, Hand- u. Hilfeb. 1842, p. 387 . : . ; : . G. varius. 
This well-marked group of four species is widely distributed throughout India, 
Burma and the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon and Java. Where it occurs outside of these 
regions it has probably been introduced by man. The four species are as follows— 
