THAUMALEA AMHERSTIA.

Lady Ambherst’s Pheasant.

Phasianus Amherstie, Leadb. in Linn. Trans., vol. xvi. p. 129.

Thaumalea Amherstia, Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. iii. p. 497, Thaumalea, sp. 2, pl. cxxv.—Gray, List of
Spec. of Birds in Coll. Brit. Mus., part il. p. 24.—Blyth, Cat. of Birds in Mus. Asiat. Soc. Calcutta,
p. 246.—Sclat. in Proc. of Zool. Soc., 1863, p. 117.

 

Tuts very remarkable member of the Phascantde was brought under the notice of the scientific world for
the first time in 1828 by the late Mr. Benjamin Leadbeater, who, in a paper read by him at the meeting of
the Linnean Society of London on the 2nd of December of that year, stated that “the return of His
Excellency the Right Honourable Earl Amherst from India has made us acquainted with one of the most
splendid examples of the genus Phasianus that has been submitted to the notice of ornithologists for many
years past.

«Two males of this new and beautiful species came originally from the mountains at Cochin China, and
were presented by the King of Ava to Sir Archibald Campbell, who gave them to the Countess Amherst.
Her ladyship retained them in her possession about two years, and. ultimately succeeded in bringing them
both to England alive ; but they only survived the voyage a few weeks.

‘I propose the name of Phastanus Amherstie for this valuable addition to our catalogue, as a tribute due
to the distinguished lady to whom ornithologists are indebted for the knowledge of this new species.

‘The general character of this bird and the arrangement of its plumage are very similar to those of the
well-known Golden Pheasant.”

When Lady Amherst brought home the two examples from which Mr. Leadbeater’s characters were
taken, nothing certain was known of their history, of the locality whence they came, or of the country of which
they were natives; and the time which has since elapsed has not enabled us to acquire this very desirable
information. It is now, however, believed that the bird is an inhabitant of the Chinese province of Yunnan
and the adjoining region of Tibet. It was seen by the preceding extract from the sixteenth volume of the
‘ Transactions of the Linnean Society’ how Lady Amherst became possessed of her two specimens: one of
them, I believe, is still in the possession of her family, the other, which was presented to Mr. Leadbeater
by Lady Amherst, passed into the possession of the late Earl of Derby, and now forms part of the fine
collection bequeathed by his lordship to the town of Liverpool; it is from this specimen that my figure was
taken, and I am much indebted to the Trustees of the Derby Museum for their kindness in permitting me
to make a drawing of it. Mr. B. H. Hodgson, formerly the British resident in Nepaul, and so well known for
his devotion to natural history, obtained two specimens which had been brought into the Napaulese territory,
from some distant country to the eastwards ; they are now in the British Museum, and two more have, I
believe, been sent to Paris. The six specimens enumerated, all of which are males, are probably all that
have yet been collected. It would give me great pleasure to see a female of this fine bird, and every ornitho-
logist would be truly gratified by the arrival of any information respecting the part of the celestial empire
in which it dwells, and any details as to its habits. The bird would, doubtless, be as easily kept in our
aviaries as its near ally the Golden Pheasant ; and it is my ardent wish to see it thus located before I leave
this lower world for the higher and brighter one, which is the end of our hopes and desires.

Irides white ; naked skin surrounding the eyes light verditer-blue ; feathers of the crown green ; crest
crimson ; pendent tippet white, each feather tipped with a narrow, crescentic, dark green band, with an interior
edging of a lighter tint and a straight band of the same kind about three-eighths of an inch from the tip ;
neck, back, shoulders, chest, and wing-coverts beautiful metallic green, each feather tipped with a broad
zone of velvety black ; primaries dark brown, with lighter shafts and white edgings ; greater wing-coverts
and secondaries bluish black ; breast and belly white ;. thighs and under tail-coverts mottled dark brown
and white; legs light blue; feathers of the rump brown at the base, green in the middle, and the exposed
portion bright saffron-yellow ; tail-coverts brown at the base, barred with green and white in the middle,
and ending in scarlet ; two broad middle tail-feathers olive-grey, crossed with curved bars of green about
three-quarters of an inch apart, between which a series of oblique wavy limes of a blackish brown ; the
remaining feathers have the inner web narrow and mottled black and white, the outer web with curved
brownish green bars, about three-quarters of an inch apart, on a ground the inner portion of which is
greyish white, the outer light chestnut-brown.

The figure of the bird is about two-thirds of the natural size. ‘The accompanying ferns are the two
varieties of the Preris guadriaurita—argyrea and tricolor. The beautiful butterfly is the Papilio Paris.