176 J. Delacour—The Rheinart’s Pheasant or Crested Argus


The male may be distinguished from the female by having a small

red streak of feathers behind the eye.


Mr. Eoland Green’s painting is of the fine female bird now living

in the Zoological Society’s collection.



THE RHEINART’S PHEASANT OR CRESTED


ARGUS


[Rheinartia ocellata)


By J. Delacour


Before 1923 the Crested Argus had remained one of the rarest

and most elusive of all Pheasants. About a dozen skins of the typical

race from Annam and half the number of the darker form from the

Malay Peninsula existed in Natural History Museums, mostly in

England and in France. Very little was known of the life of the birds.

Collectors only reported that they lived in forests and were difficult

to detect.


In his fine Monograph of the Pheasants, vol. iv, pp. 100-3 (1922),

W. Beebe gave a detailed account of what had been written

on this fine species up to that date, and our readers may be referred

to it. We shall only say here shortly that it was first known by

some feathers deposited in the Paris Museum, of unknown origin.

Yerreaux thought it belonged to some new species of Argus and

proposed for it the name of ocellatus in 1856. These feathers were

figured in Elliot’s Monograph of the Phasianidx , 1872, vol. i, pi. 13.


Our knowledge of the bird remained unchanged till 1882, when

Maingonnat, a Parisian naturalist and dealer, received the perfect skin

of a male sent by Major Eheinart; it had been captured 15 miles west

of Hue, in Annam, at the foot of the mountains. The collector stated

that he had never seen the bird during his shooting trips, but had

found feathers which are highly prized by the Annamites, who use

them for theatrical head-dresses. Maingonnat exhibited this first-

known skin of a Eheinart at the Zoological Society meeting in Paris,

and recognized that a new genus, Rheinardia, had to be created for

this striking new species. It had to be altered to Rheinartia, as the



