Marvels of the Universe Sai 
sea. But even so, it goes down deep to lay its eggs, which measure about six and a _ half 
inches long, and have the lower end produced into a long ‘‘tail,’ which, it is believed, is 
thrust down into the mud, so as to anchor the egg ina vertical position. But this is not all. 
When first laid its walls are impervious; but soon they become pierced by a number of slits 
through which currents of water pass 
to the growing embryo. 
BEAUTIFUL PHEASANTS 
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G. 
Ir the different groups and families of 
birds competed for a beauty prize it 
would be difficult to award the gold 
medal to any one section, and declare 
this or that family to be more beauti- 
fulthan any other. Possibly, we should 
decide that in regard to graceful shape, 
vivid beauty of coloration, and exquisite 
elaboration of pattern the Pheasants 
held the chief position. | Humming 
Birds and Sunbirds are exquisitely 
beautiful, but they are very small. 
Parrots are gorgeous, but they are often 
clumsy or grotesque in shape. The 
Birds of Paradise perhaps reach a 
climax in wonderful structure and ex- 
quisite tints of plumage, but the 
Pheasants are more numerous, are 
almost world-wide in their range, and 
play quite a spectacular part in human 
civilization; for do they not include 
the Peacock, the Turkey, the Guinea- 
fowl, the Gold, Silver and Ambherst 
From a specimen in the Royal Collection at Stutigart. 
7 ! ¢ 
Pheasants, the nearly equally beautiful 
: BULWER’S PHEASANT. 
‘ This rare and beautiful form is found in Western Borneo, both in 
handsome breeds of Domestic Fowl, all Sarawak and in the Dutch territory along the Baram river. The male has 
Pheasant of our woods,and the many 
of which are very much mixed up with a heavily-plumed fail of snowy white and the rest of the plumage is 
, metallic-blue and sepia-brown. 
the surroundings of humanity ? 
These domesticated “ Pheasants,” however, though in the forms of Peacock and Turkey they 
are among the marvels of the bird class, are nevertheless so familiar to us that they have ceased 
to be marvellous, and to excite fresh wonderment we must present much rarer forms of the Pheasant 
family from the jungles of easternmost Asia. 
A Pheasant which is a marvel for the length of its tail is Rheinhardt’s Pheasant, which is 
found in the mountains of Tonquin and Annam. The total length of the specimen here illustrated, 
which is to be seen in the Stuttgart Museum in Southern Germany and which is probably the 
finest in any collection, is nearly nine feet, of which length the tail measures nearly six feet. Itis 
really the middle pair of the tail feathers which are so broadened and enormously prolonged. They 
are boldly marked with ocellations of chestnut-brown on a pale-grey ground, some of the smaller 
markings being black rings with white centres. The plumage of the body and wings is mainly 
