LADY AMHERST PHEASANT 



Chrysolophus amherstiae (Leadbeater) 



Names. — Specific : avtherstiae, after the Countess Amherst. English : Lady Amherst Pheasant. German : 

 Diamantfasan ; Amherstfasan. French : Faisan D' Amherst. Native : S^ng-ky (Fowl of the buds, from its favourite 

 food of bamboo sprouts, Chinese) ; Kwa-kwa-chi (Chinese : onomatopoetic) ; Wokree (Kachins and other Burma- 

 Yunnan tribes). 



Brief Description. — Male : Top of head bronze green ; long occipital crest dark red ; cape white, margined 

 and barred with black glossed with steel blue ; chin and throat black ; mantle, shoulders and breast dark iridescent 

 green ; back black with a wide yellowish buff fringe ; rump fringe scarlet in the centre, white laterally ; visible 

 parts of wing chiefly steel blue ; long upper tail-coverts black and white with long scarlet tips ; central tail-feathers 

 white with curved blue bars and wavy black lines on the interspaces ; the other rectrices lack the latter and show 

 much brown ; under-parts back of the breast pure white, marked with brown on flanks ; facial skin blue. Female : 

 Similar to the hen golden pheasant, but with considerable bare facial skin of a blue colour. 



Range. — Eastern Tibet and western China. 



THE BIRD IN ITS WILD HOME 



In some cases we were made aware of the presence of pheasants as soon as we 

 entered their haunts. Their challenge would ring out over the other voices in the jungle, 

 or the flash of their feathers would come to us as they rocketed past down some gorge. 

 Again, other pheasants seemed the minor note in all their surroundings. They were to 

 be discovered only by the most stealthy approach, and even when located by faint sounds 

 of scratching among the leaves, a few recent tracks would often be all that rewarded an 

 hour's stalk. 



The Pheasant of Lady Amherst was of this character, and was to us for days but 

 a phantom, holding us keenly to the search by the finding of an occasional feather or 

 tracks, but not until many days had passed permitting a glimpse of its royal self. 



Its home was a romantic and beautiful one, on the frontier of Yunnan and Burma 

 far to the north in the very heart of Asia. Here the pellet of hail or the snowflake which 

 falls upon the stunted vegetation of Tabu-pum or any of its sister peaks, if driven by the 

 bitter, icy Tibetan blasts to the westward of the ridge, has before it a long and varied 

 journey ere it mingles with the tepid tropical waters of the Bay of Bengal at the mouth of 

 the Irrawaddy. Starting at a height of about two miles above the sea, the melted flakes 

 form most beautiful rushing torrents, flowing through deep ravines. The steep sides of 

 these lofty valleys are the natural pathways of the hardy pheasants which wander southward 

 at the beginning of winter from their mid- Yunnan or Tibetan summer quarters. 



Even in the middle of the day we found these ravines, with their icy torrents, cool, 

 and ever damp, and odorous of clean earth and spicy leaves. Life is always present ; 

 high overhead a pair of bulbuls sway on a tall bare bamboo ; a tree with a thousand 

 roots hums with the wings of a myriad bees, warmed into a few hours' life by a slanting 



26 



