“ A favourite resort o f these alpine Pheasants is the brushwood and forests clothing the”sides of the high
Toongassee mountain, which lies between Rammee and Joseemuth, where the hazel-nut is abundant, and
where the pink-flowered Rhododendron with yellow under-surfaced leaves also abounds at the highest
elevation of brushwood growth. This mountain is, I believe, about 18,000 feet high, and is only traversable
during the months of August and September, when it is tolerably free from snow; its top is undulated and
studded with small hills or rounded cupola-shaped mounds, among which flowering bulbs and grass abound,
and among them the bird, doubtless, finds a supply o f its favourite food. I never met with any young birds,
nor did I ever find any o f the nests or eggs.”
Captain Hutton informs us that a pair kept in confinement lived contentedly, became exceedingly tame,
and produced two eggs in June, both of which, however, were destroyed by the male; their colour was pale
rufous-brown, like those usually termed in India ‘ game hen’s eggs.’ Captain Hutton adds that the species
is peculiar to the confines of the snow on the loftier hills of the North-western Himalaya.
The sexes of few birds differ more widely in colour than do those of the present species, the female being
dressed in a sombre-coloured livery, while the male is adorned with the deepest tints and most conspicuous
markings, and with wattles and horns of the most brilliant h u e s ; the colouring o f these horns and wattles
is, however, only conspicuous during the breeding season; at other periods of the year they are greatly
contracted or shrivelled up as it were, and their colours are very much less brilliant, so much so, indeed,
as to present little or no indication of the tints they exhibit a t tbe pairing season; of which the following is
an accurate description.
Crown o f the head, crest and ear-coverts black; bill black; irides hazel; naked skin o f the throat rich
deep bluish-black in the centre, passing into rich indigo-blue on the sides, into verditer-green at the base of
the bill, and beset with black hairs ; wattles thin, free, the upper p art deep blue, the lower four-fifths rich
reddish flesh-colour, corrugated and edged with rich blue, and with four diagonal stripes of the same hub
proceeding from a central black line towards the outer ed g e ; orbits, a series o f small fleshy wart-like papillas,
of a rich yellowish-vermilion with light blue interspaces; the upper edge of the orbits, and the pointed
fleshy horn-like processes proceeding from their posterior upper angle, bluish verditer-green; back and
sides o f the neck and a large patch on each shoulder maroon-red; all the upper surface and wings freckled
black and sandy-buff, with numerous spots o f white encircled with black; primaries dark brown, crossed by
irregular freckled bars o f sandy-buff; on the upper tail-coverts the sandy freckles are larger and more conspicuous,
and a t the end of each feather is a large spot of white, bounded on the sides with pale chestnut-
brown, and above and below with black; tail black, freckled with sandy-buff a t the b ase; on the centre of
the breast a number of stiff lanceolate blood-red feathers; feathers o f the under surface maroon-red, freckled
a t the base with buff and brown and largely tipped with black, in the centre o f which is a spot of white;
these white spots are of small size on the breast, but gradually increase until they become very large towards
the t a i l ; the black tips and white spots, too, occupy so much of the feather, that the maroon hue only
occasionally appears; legs and feet reddish flesh-colour.
In the young male the plumage is less brilliant, the horns and wattles but little developed, the orbits are
o f a dull yellow, and tbe lanceolate feathers o f the breast are orange instead of blood-red.
The general hue of the female is light brown, mottled and barred with fine zigzag lines and spots of
blackish-brown; the feathers of the back with a narrow central streak of buffy-white, and those of the under
surface with larger and more conspicuous markings of the same hue near the tips o f the feathers; bill and
legs paler or more horn-colour than in the male.
The Plate represents two males about three-fourths of the natural size, and two females in the distance
much reduced.