The True Pheasants 
75 
The above, then, is a summary of Mr. O. Grant's very lucid exposition of the True 
Pheasants, and one with which no doubt a large number of naturalists will agree. But, 
on the other hand, many students of natural history, in which I include myself, are 
quite unable to accept all the local forms of the Common Pheasant scattered over an 
immense area and differing only in trifling particulars from one another as species, but 
look upon them as sub-specific races of the first described type, Phasianus colchicus. 
Some authors regard Soemmering's and Reeves's Pheasants (Group II. and III.) as 
belonging to a distinct genus, Syrmaticus, on account of the length of the tail, but Mr. 
Grant does not do so, whilst he places in a separate genus {Calophasis) Elliot's Pheasant 
and Mr. Hume's Pheasant, which are clearly so closely allied to the two foregoing 
species. This seems to me inconsistent ; either they should all come under the True 
Pheasants and be regarded merely as separate species, or the genus Syrmaticus should 
hold good. 
Since the above was written the Hon. Walter Rothschild, in describing a new species 
of True Phasianus, P. mikado, has given excellent reasons 1 for arriving at very similar 
conclusions to those which I have formed. He considers that the True Pheasants 
should be retained in one genus, which should include the following species and sub- 
species : — 
1. Phasianus colchicus, with numerous sub-species. 
2. ,, reevesii. 
3. ,, ellioti. 
4. ,, humice, with two sub-species. 
5. ,, soemmcringi, with three sub-species. 
6. ,, mikado. 
My friend, the late Mr. Henry Seebohm, who paid great attention to the birds of 
this group, writing in the Ibis for 1887, said : — 
"The fact that all true pheasants interbreed freely with each other and produce fertile offspring, 
may be accepted as absolute proof that they are only sub-specifically distinct from each other. 
Like all other sub-species, they only exist upon sufferance. The local races appear to be distinct 
enough, but they only retain their distinctive character as long as they are isolated from each 
other. The moment they are brought into contact they begin to interbreed ; crosses of every 
kind rapidly appear, and in a comparatively short time the swamping effects of interbreeding 
reduce the two or more local races which have been brought into contact to a single and uniform 
intermediate race. Such swamping effects of interbreeding have practically stamped out in the 
British Islands the two very different looking races of pheasants which were introduced into 
them — Phasianus colchicus from Asia Minor, and Phasianus torquatus from China. The pheasant 
of the British Islands is, with very rare exceptions, only a mongrel between these two races, but, 
it must be admitted, a very healthy and fertile one. 
"The intermingling of the several races in the course of ages, and the isolation of the different 
breeds in the valleys and river systems of Asia, have given rise to numerous sub-species which 
are found spread over that vast continent. The spread of scientific investigation is continually 
disclosing new pheasants, which it pleases the discoverers to regard as distinct species, but which 
are obviously only mixed races. Mr. D. G. Elliot, writing in 1872, enumerated about a dozen. 
Mr. Seebohm, in the Ibis for 1887, described six as sub-species of P. colchicus (three of which 
were not recognised by Mr. Elliot). These are P. principalis from North Afghanistan ; P. persicus, 
1 Bull., B.O. Club, Nov. 29, 1907. 
