the nepal kali;. 187 



Gallophasis albocristatus * (!) an impossible title, seeing that the 

 bird has a black crest. In both editions of the B. M. Catalogue 

 of Mr. Hodgson's collection (1846 and 1863) Gallophasis 

 leucomelanus is entered ; but then albocristatus is added as a 

 synonym, which is clearly an error. 



" But it may be, and indeed has been, held that the Nepal 

 Kalij is a hybrid between albocristatus and melanonotus. In dis- 

 proof of this theory, I can now bring forward ample evidence. 



"The Nepal Kalij is a most interesting species, exactly inter- 

 mediate in colouration and in habitat to the White-crested and 

 Black-backed Kalij Pheasants, and is possibly the older form 

 from which the other two have branched off to west and east 

 and become modified. During the two years I resided in Nepal 

 I tried in vain, both personally and by the offer of rewards, to 

 obtain a specimen of either albocristatus or melanonotus, which, on 

 the " hybrid" theory, should have been found there interbreeding. 

 I have seen scores of the Nepal Kalij (of which at least thirty 

 were adult males), and they were all exactly alike and constant 

 to the definition above given of the species, 



" Any one seeing only a single male bird of leucomelanus 

 would perhaps naturally conclude that it was a hybrid ; but 

 when the two supposed parent species are found to be entirely 

 absent from the large tract of country where the Nepal Kalij 

 abounds, while the characters of the latter are constant in a 

 large series of specimens — the conviction that it is a thoroughly 

 good species seems to me to be irresistible. 



" The Nepal Kalij extends to the east nearly as far as the 

 Aum I believe, melanonotus being found east of that river only ; 

 of the range of our bird to the west I have no certain informa- 

 tion, but albocristatus probably replaces it in the extreme 

 western portion of the Nepal territories." 



The HABITS and nidification of this species are, of course, 

 very similar to those of the other Kalij Pheasants. This species, 

 however, would not seem to descend quite so low as the preced- 

 ing. Hodgson notes : " This is by far the commonest Pheasant 

 in Nepal. Its range is the central region ; it is never found in 

 the Tarai, seldom in the Cachar.*f Where Gallus ferrugineus 

 ends there the Kalij begins, and extends, though in diminishing 

 numbers, to the region of the Moonal and Tragopan. 



Dr. Scully says : — 



" Leucomelanus is common wherever thick forest is found, 

 from Hitorna in the Nepal Dun to the Valley of Nepal ; in all 



* There are sevei-al figures, big and little ; but there is also one of true " albo~ 

 cristalits" which Mr. Hodgson notes as being the only one of the kind he had seen, 

 so that, though he gave no separate name, he did recognize the difference. 



+ This is Mr. Hodgson's name for the more elevated regions of Nepal. Else- 

 where the term is applied to low alluvial flats along the banks of the large rivers of 

 Continental India. 



