360



N. Wharton-Tigar—London Zoo Notes



the bird on Mt. Arizan, and it was rare. Mr. Grant named it Calo-

phases mikado. Then in January, 1912, Mr. Goodfellow made a second

expedition to Formosa with the object of bringing live specimens of

the Mikado Pheasant. As a result of this expedition, he brought

home eleven skins and an equal number of live birds for Mrs. E. J.

Johnstone ; here they laid freely, and many young were hatched and

reared. These Pheasants in their native haunts do not live on grain,

but on the leaves of a common low-growing plant, which abounds on

the steep mountain-side, which is their home. This plant is not found

growing below 7,000 feet. The Zoo is fortunate in having a fine pair

of these birds.


I noticed the following varieties of the Fireback : the Bornean

Fireback ( Lophura igmta) blue-faced, chestnut red on back, and

speckled in front; Vieillot’s Fireback (. Lophura rufa), Siam, and a

pair of the Siamese Crested Firebacks (Lophura diardi). There are

also examples of the Cheer Pheasant ( Catreus wallichi Hardwick) ;

the Ring-necked Pheasant ( Phasianus torquatus), Manchuria, and

Eastern China, and Elliot’s Barred-backed Pheasant ( Symaticus Ellioti ),

S.E. China. I saw a cock and two hens of this very attractive variety,

which is frequently bred both in this country and in France. Also

the Blue-eared Pheasant ( Crossoptilon auritum) from Tibet—and

proudly strutting about a perfectly lovely cock Golden Pheasant

(Chrysolophus pictus), mountains of South and West China, and last,

but not least, an absolutely pure-bred Lady Amherst Pheasant—-it

would be impossible to imagine anything more beautiful—West China

and East Tibet.


The interest in these birds is well fostered by the recently formed

Ornamental Pheasant Society, which, I hear, already musters several

hundred members.


I have to thank Mr. Seth-Smith for his kind help to me in preparing

these notes, and also to Mr. Stratton, of the Zoo Library, who looked

up all the available textbooks on the subject. I should also like to

rectify a little mistake I made in writing of the clever finder of a

species of Pheasant in the Belgian Congo (Afropavo conginsia ).

I should have called him Dr. James P. Chapin, Associate Curator

of Birds, American Museum of Natural History, New York.



