PHEASANTS, 
427 
southern species of both this is absent, or at best ill-defined. Since it cannot be 
considered that the individuals with traces of the collar found among the southern 
species are the results of interbreeding with the northern ringed species, when their 
ranges are separated by chains of mountains, we must conclude that the original 
stock were probably of northern origin, and, like those still inhabiting the higher 
latitudes, possessed a white ring; that as the species spread gradually southwards 
this characteristic, from some cause or other, has been lost, but that numerous 
individuals still show traces of a reversion to the ancestral type. Of the aberrant 
species we may note the Japanese pheasant (P. versicolor), with the under-parts 
uniform metallic green, Elliot’s pheasant (P. ellioti), from the mountains of South- 
East China, and Hume’s pheasant (P. humece), from Upper Burma and the Shan 
Hills. In the two latter the lower back is black barred with white, and there are 
only sixteen instead of the normal eighteen tail-feathers. Still more different are 
Soemmerring’s pheasant (P. soemmerringi), from Japan, which has the plumage 
chestnut shot with purplish carmine and fiery gold, and Reeves’ pheasant (P. reevesi), 
from North China, with its white crown, black collar, tawny plumage, and a tail 
fully 5 feet in length in the oldest males. All the members of the genus are 
polygamous, each cock pairing with several hens. 
Golden and Undoubtedly the most gorgeously adorned members of the whole 
Amherst’s pheasant family are found in the genus which includes the golden 
Pheasants. an( { Amherst’s pheasants (Cliry solophus pictus and G. amlierstioe), of 
the mountains of Eastern Tibet and Western and Southern China. The characters 
distinguishing the males are the long, full crest of hairy feathers and the cape-like 
mass of feathers covering the back of the head and neck, as well as the long tail 
and its greatly lengthened upper-coverts. The male of the species figured, although 
possessing fewer brilliant colours than the golden pheasant, has the colours purer 
and more harmonious. The top of the head, mantle, scapulars, and chest are dark 
bronze-green; the long crest blood-red; the feathers forming the cape pure white, 
margined and barred across the middle with black glossed with steel-blue; the lower 
back and rump widely tipped with yellowish buff’ barred with dark green ; and the 
long upper tail-coverts white, irregularly barred with black and widely tipped 
with orange-scarlet. The wings and under tail-coverts are mostly black, with dark 
purplish green reflections; the long middle tail-feathers with arched bars and wavy 
lines of black ; the throat and fore part of the neck brownish black, slightly glossed 
with green; and the rest of the under-parts pure white, barred 011 the flanks with 
black. Unlike the golden pheasant, both sexes have a patch of naked blue skin 
surrounding the eye; but the female has none of the brilliant plumage of the male, 
the general colour of the upper-parts being rufous and buff, marked and barred, 
especially on the wings and middle tail-feathers, with dark brown; the outer tail- 
feathers being chestnut mixed with black and barred and tipped with white, and 
the breast and under-parts mostly pale buff, barred on the breast and sides with 
dark brown. This species has been imported from Western China and Eastern 
Tibet to Europe, where, being of a hardy nature, it thrives in aviaries. 
The game-fowls inhabit the jungles of the Indo-Malayan 
countries and many of the adjacent islands; the males differing 
from the other birds of this group in having a high fleshy comb extending along 
Game-Fowls. 
