POLY PLECTRON CHINQUIS.
Assam Peacock-Pheasant.

Pavo tibetanus, Briss. Orn., tom. i. p. 294, pl. xxviii. A. fie. 2?
edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p- 731 ?—Bonn. al
fig. 3.—Cuyv. Régn. Anim., 1829, tom. i. pee

Le Chinquis, Buff. Hist. Nat. des Ois., tom. ii. p. 365; Pl. Enl., 492, 493.

Thibet Peacock, Lath. Gen. Syn., vol. iv. p. 675.—Shaw, Nat. Misc.

Polyplectron chinquis, Temm. Hist. Nat. des
—Blyth, Cat. of Birds in Mus.
—Swinh. ibid., p. 307.

—Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 26. no. 2 8?—Gmel.
Vieill. Ency. Méth., Orn., parti. p. 179, pl. 83.

» pl. 441.—Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. viii, plz}
Eas et des Gall., tom. ii. p. 363, tom. il. p. 675.—Id. Pl. Col., 539.
Asiat. Soc. Calcutta, p. 241.—Sclat. in Proc. of Zool. Soc., 1863, p. 124.

—— thibetanus, Bonap. Compt. Rend de I’Acad. Sci., 1856, p. 878.—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds
vol. ili. p. 495.

— albo-ocellatum, Cuv.
lineatum, Gray and Hardw. Ill. Ind. Zool., pl. 38.—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. iii. p- 495.

cyclospilum, P. atelospilum, et P. enicospilum, G. R. Gray, List of Spec. of Birds in Coll. Brit. Mus.,
part v. Galline, pp. 23, 24 ?

thibetanum, Elliot, Mon. of Phas., pl.
Diplectron bicalcaratus, Vieill. Gal. des Ois., tom. ii. pl. 203.

 

Own reference to my account of the Polyplectron bicalcaratum, it will be seen that I regard the synonymy of
that species and of the bird here represented as being in a state of inextricable confusion, and believe it
impossible to determine with certainty to which of the two best-known species of this form the descriptions
and even the names given by the older authors are referable—and that I there stated my intention to retain
the above name for the bird from Malasia, or the Malayan Peacock-Pheasant, and to employ Temminck’s
term of chinguis for the Assam and Sylhet species (¢. e. the one here figured), which may or may not be
the Pavo tibetanus of Brisson, Linneus, and Gmelin ; but I quite agree with Mr. Sclater that, if it be, the
name ought not to be retained, since, as might be supposed, the bird is not an inhabitant of that cold
northern region.

Few and slight indeed are the notices on record of this species; by far the most interesting is comprised
in the following extract from Ornithognomon’s ‘“ Game-Birds of India,” published in ‘The Field’ news-
paper :—

“This bird inhabits the great southern branch of the Himalaya, which passes through Burma, where the
range is called the Yomadoung, or Backbone mountains, through Tenasserim. Blyth, in his ‘ Catalogue of
the Birds in the Asiatic Society's Museum,’ gives Sylhut, in Eastern Bengal, as a habitat ; and it is said to
be found in all the mountainous parts of Assam. It is also met with in the eastern parts of Chittagong, and
in all the inland hills of Arakan.

“T have never shot this bird, and, indeed, only once came upon it, in a narrow path leading along a
ridge about 3000 feet above the sea, in the mountains on the British side of the Thoungyen Tv, venich
separates Tenasserim from Yahan in Siam. It started so suddenly, having ey ae dusting itself mm
the path, and shot so rapidly through the jungle down the kud, that, had it not left two or three of its
feathers behind, I should not have known what bird I had flushed. I am not aware of any English spouismian
ds; and, indeed, it frequents such inaccessible places as effectually to defy

having ever bagged one of these bir
a height of six or eight thousand feet above the sea, and

approach. These mountains in the tropics rise to

from six thousand feet downwards are clothed with such a dense mass of trees, Se
ogether by creepers and tangle, that it would be an hour’s labour to cut one’s

d to this, there is not a square foot of level ground anywhere

thickets, underwood, bamboos,

and thorny rattans, all bound t
way through a hundred yards of such stuff. Ad
off the pathway, and the sides of these hills are a
slide down the greasy soil, ever moist with the dripping aa a
finds himself brought up in a mass of thorny tangle, or, while plunging ae we
leaves, trips headlong over one of the thousands of ate logs and trunks which, burte : age,
lie concealed from the eye of the most vigilant.”

ther d to which the explorer ts exposed from venomous insects of various kinds and the deadly

o ° eS 2 = bs ie ‘ o 2 . »
other dangers to W and proceeds to say that, “if, undeterred by all these obstacles, the
9 a J Zs

the lower he descends the more oppressive grows the
almost stifling. The air, which, keen and

so steep that walking along them is most difficult. The feet
s of the trees and decayed vegetation, and the explorer
p through a slough of rotting

prostr a :
The writer then gives a vivid description of the many

miasma engendered in such localities
sportsman forces his way down the steep

atmosphere ; and the heat at the bottom, 1

incline,
f he can reach so far, 1s

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