Although time for field study in Japan was limited, Foreign Game 
Introduction Program personnel inspected the green pheasant's habitat 
in northern and central Honshu, Oshima Island and south into the Kago- 
shima area of Kyushu. This land area approximates in size half the 
State of California. In the area studied, Japanese hunters today 
harvest annually over 450,000 green pheasants. 
Fewer green pheasants were seen on Kyushu than were noted on 
Honshu and Oshima Islands. They are still common in the more wild or 
remote areas of Japan as well as around Tokyo. On the brush-covered 
peninsulas opposite the base occupied by the U. S. Navy at Yokosuka 
the green pheasant and Chinese bamboo partridge both are present and 
are a challenge to bag in their escape cover. A good hunting dog is 
desirable in order to flush the wild green pheasant from its brushy- 
wooded coverts. 
Description 
The plumage of the male green pheasant is dominantly metallic; 
underparts are either entirely green, as in northern Honshu, or more 
purplish and bluish below for the southernmost bird, according to 
Delacour (8), and Austin and Kuroda (4). A white collar, like that of 
the ring-necked pheasant from Formosa, Korea and China does not occur 
on male green pheasants, Austin and Kuroda note that females of the 
green pheasant subspecies cannot be distinguished from one another 
with any certainty. 
The green pheasants show a great deal of individual variation 
with no clear-cut morphological differences between subspecies, 
according to Austin and Kuroda. They also report that while there is 
little geographic size variation, a regional color variation has been 
observed ranging frém lighter in the colder northern part of the range 
to darker feather coloration where high rainfall is coupled with sub- 
tropical vegetation in southern Kyushu habitat, The following simpli- 
fied key illustrates this color vgtiaceon from northern Honshu to the 
southern island of Kyushu. | 
P. v. robustipes Northern green gray~crowned 
pheasant 
P. v. versicolor Southern green green-crowned 
pheasant 
P. v. tanensis Pacific green green-crowned but 
pheasant characterized by being 
more purplish and 
bluish below with the 
back and rump grayer 
and bluer than are 
northern and western 
birds 
Following are descriptions of the male and female northern and 
southern green pheasants as described by Delacour (8), 
7 
