PHEASANTS. 
423 
Kalij Pheasants. 
The range of this species includes the mountains of Mantchuria and Northern 
China. These birds are met with in the pine-forests at an elevation of from 
ten thousand to twelve thousand feet. They are gregarious in their habits, and 
forty or fifty may sometimes be met with roosting in company on the pine-trees. 
Being remarkably hardy birds, they do well in confinement, and soon become 
exceedingly tame. 
On the lower altitudes of the middle ranges of the Himalaya, 
and thence through the Burmo-Chinese countries, we meet with 
pheasants approaching the crested forms of the fire-backed pheasants. Nearly a 
dozen species belong to this group, which includes the Kalij and silver pheasants, 
as well as the somewhat aberrant Swinhoe’s pheasant (Gennceus swinhoei). All 
have a more or less elongate recumbent crest of hairy feathers, the sides of the 
head naked, and the long tail laterally compressed and vaulted, with the middle 
pair of feathers at least three times the length of the outer ones. The legs of the 
male are armed with a pair of 
stout spurs, but in the females 
these appendages are wanting. 
The most western form of the 
genus, the white - crested kalij 
(G. albocristatus), inhabits the 
Western Himalaya and Nipal; 
the male having the long hairy 
crest white, the general colour 
of the upper-parts black, glossed 
with purplish and steel-blue, and 
margined, especially on the rump, 
with white; while the fore-part 
of the neck is dirty white, 
gradually shading into brown 
on the under-parts. Proceeding 
eastwards into Nipal, we meet 
with a species (G. leucomelanus), 
differing only in having the crest black, glossed with purple; while still farther 
east in Sikhim and Bhutan the darker form (G. melanonotus) has the black 
crest of the latter, but the white terminal margins on the feathers of the rump and 
upper-parts replaced by deep purplish blue. In Bhutan, Assam, and Burma, we 
find Horsfield’s pheasant, which is the darkest of all, the whole plumage being- 
black, glossed with purplish, or steel-blue, and only the lower-back and rump being 
edged with white; and we may consider this species as representing the ancestral 
stock from which all the others have been derived. There are numerous other 
species, among which we select the silver pheasant ((r. nyctheiYievus ) of Southern 
China, noticeable for its white upper plumage, ornamented with dark markings. 
Kokiass Including seven species, these pheasants range through the 
Pheasants. Himalaya from Afghanistan to Tibet and Mantchuria. They 
majr all be recognised by the long crest of the cocks, and by the feathers above 
the ears being elongated to form tufts surpassing the crest in length. The sides 
horsfield’s pheasant. 
