1 86 . THE NEPAL KALIJ. 



It may appear at first sight inconsistent for me to insist on 

 dividing the Kalij Pheasants into four species, while I deprecate 

 making more than one of the Koklass. 



But the cases are wholly different. In the Koklass my large 

 series and all the hundreds of others that I have examined, 

 tend to prove that all three forms grade by absolutely insensible 

 degrees into each other, and thus form a single undivided 

 chain, although the links at either extremity and towards the 

 centre differ somewhat in pattern. This unbroken chain con- 

 stitutes, according to my views, a single species. 



On the other hand, the four Kalij Pheasants each constitute a 

 separate chain. I have never yet seen a single wild-killed speci- 

 men bridging over the differences between any two of the four. 

 Each has a distinct and wide range, throughout which it is 

 invariable, and which, so far as we know, is separated by blanks 

 in which no Kalij occurs from the ranges of all the others. 



In regard to this species, Dr. Scully, to whom belongs the 

 credit of rehabilitating it, writes : — 



" The adult male of this species differs from G. albocristatus 

 in having a small black crest, instead of an ample white one ; 

 in the white tips to the feathers of the rump and upper tail- 

 coverts being much narrower and further apart ; and in the 

 tarsi being more slender. From melanonotus it differs in having 

 the rump and upper tail-coverts white tipped ; in the feathers 

 of the throat and breast being darker, and more grey ; and in 

 having the tarsi much more slender. From horsfieldi it differs 

 conspicuously in having the feathers of the throat and breast 

 greyish white and lanceolate, instead of pure black and rounded ; 

 and in having the rump and upper tail-coverts much more 

 narrowly tipped with white. 



" The adult female resembles that of melanonotus much more 

 closely than it does those of either albocristatus or horsfieldi. 

 It differs from melanonotus in having the feathers of the upper 

 surface more broadly margined with greyish white ; the middle 

 tail-feathers are more broadly vermicellated, though not so 

 prominently as in albocristatus ; the edgings to the feathers of 

 the lower surface contrast more, and the rump contrasts more 

 with the middle tail-feathers — in this respect recalling horsfieldi, 

 but in no other. 



" This bird is no doubt the Phasianus leucomelanus of 

 Latham, ' Ind. Orn./ II., 633. Kirkpatrick, in his * Account 

 of the Kingdom of Nepal' (181 1, p. 132), gives a good figure 

 of this Kalij, showing its distinctive points, viz., black crest, 

 white barred lower back, and grey white throat and breast, 

 and says : — ' The Kalij is met with in the thickets which 

 overrun the gorges of the mountains near Noakote, &c.' Mr. 

 Hodgson, curiously enough, seems to have overlooked the dis- 

 tinctness of the species. In his drawings, now in Mr. Hume's 

 custody, he gives an excellent figure of our bird, but labels it 



