POLYPL ;C TF ON. rH^ gTAMUM. '
POLYPLECTRON THIBETANUM.
COMMON POLYPLECTRON.
THIBET PEACOCK, Lath. Syn. voLiv.’p. 675. no, 4.
PAVO THIBETANUS, Gm., Linn. Syst. Nat. p; 731 (1788).
POLYPLECTRON CHINQUIS, Temm. Pig; et- Gall: vbL u. pi 363i vol: m . p. 675 (1813).—Blyth’s Cat. B. Asiat. Soc. Beng. (1849) p. 241.—
Swinh. Proc. Zool. Soc: (1863)-p. 307.—Teinm, Plan.’ Coi.’ v. 539.-:-^Sclat. ProcYZoOl. Soc-. (1863) p. 124.
PAVO THIBETANUS, Cuv. Rfcg. Anim. (1829) vol. i. p . 474.
POLYPLECTRON THIBETANUM, Bonap. Compt. Rend. (1856); p. 878 Gray, Gen. o f B. (1845) Vol. iii. p. 495.—Jerd. B. o f Ind. vol. iii.
p. 509.
DIPLECTRON BICALCARATUS, V ieill. Gal. des Ois. pi. 203(1884)v-*’.’‘
POLYPLECTRON LINEATUM, Gray, 111. Ind. Zool. (1 8 3 2 ) vol. i. pi. 38.—G. R. Gray, Gen. of B. vol.,iii. (1845) p. 495, sp. 4 .
P. CYCLOSPILUM, G. R. Gray, L ist, o f Gall. (1867) P- 23.
P. ATELOSPILUM, Gray, L ist o f Gall. (1867) p. 24.
P. ENICOSPILUM, Gray, List o f Gall. (1 8 6 7 ) p. 24.
Hab. Assam, Syljiet, Arakan, Tenasserim (B lyth) ; Tipperah, Chittagong, Burmah ( J erdon) ;-Southern China, Brit. Mus. Coll. (R eeves) .
T h is beautiful bird was first described- by Latham,, in bis Synopsis, under the name o f ,the Thibet Peacock ; and this was latinized
by Gmelin as Polyplectron thibetanum, which,name, without any-.justifiable reason, Jjas been superseded with most authors by that of
chinquis, applied to the species by Temminck many, years after it was first described. ’ Very great confusion exists in the synonymy
of this bird and .the P . bicalcaratum; and as it is not easy to distinguish which ;is referred • to by the older authors, their
descriptions being not a t all satisfactory, it become^ a yery difficult matter to sift them . out and arrange them . properly under
their respective heads. The P . lineatum of Gray’s. ‘ Indian Zoology ’ is merely as female P . thibetanum. Mr. G. R. Gray, ,in his
excellent List of the Gallinas, has divided the various examples of-, this species contained in the collection of the British Museum
into three, called respectively cyclospilum, the chinquis o f authors; atelospilum and enicospilum. The differences which, he enumerates
are .chiefly'in the shape,, colour, and ‘position ,ofi!the "qyal spots upon-;the feathers« I have examined the examples; by Mr. Gray’s
kind assistance; but I have not • been able ,tp: convince myself ofy;their being more than one species of* this .particular form of
Polyplectron, and have consequently included Mr. Gray’s names among the synonyms.
Mr. A. D. Bartlett informs me that, the first; time the young, o f : this species, were hatched in the gardens o f the Zoological
Society of London, a Bantam, hen was employed for ^.¿foster-motherland^that, the chicks would follow close behind her, never,
Opining.,in front to take food, »so, that when she would scratch the ground she frequently, struck thenf,with her feet.. The reason
for the young .keeping this position was not understood uritil^on. a subsequent occasion, two chicks were raised by a hen,
P . chinquis; and then it was observed that they always kept in the same manner close, behind , the mother, who held her tail'
widely spread, thus completely covering th em ; and there they continually -remained out of;j.sight, only running forward when
called by the hen to pick up some food, which sljO had found, and then immediately retreating to their shelter. Jt
was thus eyidept that the young following the Bantam h e n . were simply obeying - the instincts o f their nature, although the
upright tail of their novel mother failed to afford them the protection which they, would have found if they had been raised
by a female of their own species.,
Of the very few accounts which we have of the habits, o f this species, I extract the following from Ornithognomon’s “ Game
Birds of India,” as published in ‘ The Field
“ 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, and the entire Malayan peninsula. Blyth, in his Catalogue o f th e birds
in the Asiatic Society’s Museum, gives Silluit, 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. At Singapore and
Malacca they are frequently brought by the Malays for sale,, and, being-much prized for their beauty, are frequently taken to
Calcutta and purchased by the rich natives for their aviaries.
“ I have never shot this bird, and, indeed* only once came upon riff in a narrow path leading along a ,r id g e about 3000 feet
above the sea, in ,tlie mountains on -the British side of the Thoungyen river, which separates Tenasserim from Yahan in Siam. It
started so suddenly, having apparently been dusting itself in the path, and shot so rapidly through the jungle. down the kud, that,
had it not left two or three o f its feathers behind, I should not have known what bird I had flushed,' - I am not aware of any
English sportsman having ever bagged one o f these b ird s ; and, indeed, it frequents such' inaccessible places as effectually to defy
approach. These mountains in the; tropics rise to a height of: six or eight thousand feet above the sea, and from six thousand
feet downwards are clothed with such a dense mass of*trees, thickets, underwood, bamboos and thorny rattans, all bound together
by creepers and tangle, that it would be an hour’s labour to cut one’s way through a hundred yards of such stuff. Add to this,
there is not a square foot of level ground anywhere off the pathway, and the sides of these hills are so steep that walking along
them is most difficult. The feet slide down the greasy soil, ever moist with the drippings o f the trees and decayed .vegetation,