Marvels of the Universe 843 
common in the great aviaries of European pheasant fanciers. Nehrkorn’s Pheasant, however, is a 
very rare bird, even as a museum specimen. The Chinquis has a comparatively wide geographical 
range from Sikkim in British Tibet through Assam to Lower Burma and Indo-China. Nehrkorn’s 
Peacock Pheasant, however, is confined in its distribution to the small island of Palawan 
between the Philippines and North Borneo. This last-named bird is of great beauty in 
plumage, the adult male having the greater part of the body purplish-blue changing into dark- 
green, many of the feathers being edged by margins of steel-blue or golden-green. The tail has a 
ground colour of buff or reddish-brown, but each tail feather is ornamented with a pair of large 
bluish-green-violet ocelli surrounded by rings of black and grey. The face is marked with white 
and there is a vivid patch of naked crimson skin round the eye, so that it is a bird of very striking 
coloration. The Chinquis Pheasant, though it has the splendid metallic blue-green ocelli on its back 
and tail and the coverts of the wing, has the rest of the plumage whitish-grey and brown. 
The Chinquis is a bold bird 
of vicious temper (in the male), 
so that it will often attack 
human beings entering the 
aviary in which it lives. The 
male, moreover, is very spiteful 
towards the female, so much so 
that most of the Peacock 
Pheasants of this type that one 
sees in European aviaries are 
living as widowers, having 
killed a succession of females 
which had been provided for 
them as mates. It is a great 
pity that such a handsome 
bird should have such a dis- 
position, as it is quite well 
able to stand the cold of a 
European climate and might 
otherwise have been as easily 
domesticated as the gorgeous 
peacock, its near relation. The 
Peacocks, Peacock Pheasants, 
Argus and Rheinhardt’s Phea- 
sants form a small group by 
themselves, with distant re- 
lationships both to the Guinea- 
fowl of Africa and the Turkeys 
of America, though, of course, 
they are all “ Pheasants.” 
Another group nearly allied 
is that which includes the 
Domestic Fowl and its wild 
relations, the Silver Pheasants, 
the Fire-back Pheasants, the 
Crossoptilons, and  Bulwer’s 
NEHRKORN’S PEACOCK PHEASANT. 
The handsomest and the smallest of the group. It is confined in its range to 
Blue-wattled Pheasant, a very the island of Palawan between Borneo and the Philippines. 
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