Pheasants; their natural history and practical management . h the magnificent species now knownas Reevess Pheasant. In the language of his originaltranslator, whose quaint orthography I have followed,he is made to state : There be plenty of Feysants and verygreate, for 1 of them is as big as 2 of ours, with tayles ofeight, 9 and tenne spannes long, from the Kingdom ofErguyl or Arguill, the W. side of Tartary. This descrip-tion can only be applicable to the species now under con-sideration. Prom this time, until described by Latham andTemminck, this bird was comparatively unknown, exceptfrom th
Pheasants; their natural history and practical management . h the magnificent species now knownas Reevess Pheasant. In the language of his originaltranslator, whose quaint orthography I have followed,he is made to state : There be plenty of Feysants and verygreate, for 1 of them is as big as 2 of ours, with tayles ofeight, 9 and tenne spannes long, from the Kingdom ofErguyl or Arguill, the W. side of Tartary. This descrip-tion can only be applicable to the species now under con-sideration. Prom this time, until described by Latham andTemminck, this bird was comparatively unknown, exceptfrom the inspection of Chinese drawings. Sonnini, whopreceded Temminck, concludes his account by stating that itis very possible that the bird, of which he had merely seenpictures, exists only in the imagination of the Chinesepainters. Singularly enough, the species was, for thirteen years—namely, 1808 to 1821—living in the aviary of Mr. Beale, atMacao. Dr. Bennett, in his Wanderings in New SouthWales, states : In Mr. Beales splendid aviary and garden >». 302 ^.i-- REEVESS PHEASANT. 179 at Macao the beautiful 7. veneratus of Temminck, theP. reevesii of Gray, now commooly known by the name ofthe Reevess Pheasant, was seen. It is the Ghee-hai of theChinese. The longest tail feathers of the bird are 6ft. in length,and are placed in the caps of the players when actingmilitary characters. This I observed at Canton, where someof the beautiful tail feathers (rather in a dirty condition, likethe actors themselves, who, in their tawdry dresses remindedme of the chimney-sweepers in London on a May-day) wereplaced erect on each side of their caps as a decoration. The Chinese do not venerate this bird, as was firstsupposed, and which may have caused Temminck to bestowon it the name of veneratus; but it is superstitiously believedthat the blood of the bird possesses poisonous properties, andthat the Mandarins, when in expectation of losing their rankand being suddenly put to death by order
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectpheasan, bookyear1904
