Page:Acclimatisation; its eminent adaptation to Australia.djvu/30

28 years from its discovery but little was known respecting its habits and economy. Having only external structure to guide them, it was placed amongst the gallinaceous birds. Notwithstanding its great size and extraordinary form of tail, in every other point it differs from the gallinaceæ. It forms one of the insessores, or perching birds; and by one ornithologist, from its covered nest, it was placed among the wrens, but it is more correctly classed among the thrushes. The young are helpless and blind when hatched. To rear these birds it was recommended to place the eggs under a hen. Should this have been effected, judge of the surprise of the hen at her blind and feeble progeny. It will be necessary to preserve these birds from extermination, especially the talegalla and that family, for they are now becoming scarce, and, from the present wholesale destruction of the eggs and birds, they will soon be numbered with the extinct birds—as the Phillip Island parrot, the gigantic New Zealand rail (notornis mantellii) and many others. It is probable but that few persons have had an opportunity of observing this interesting bird in this, its native country; while, thanks to the benefit resulting from acclimatisation, it can he seen daily in London, together with a number of the Australian mammals and birds, in an agreeable state of domestication.

For the beautiful specimens of the male and female of these birds, and for the other preserved skins of the elegant birds on the table, I am indebted to the great kindness of Dr. William Houston, of Castlereagh-street, as without them I could not illustrate my subject, as no public institution in the colony was sufficiently liberal to permit a specimen to he removed from their collection for the illustration of the subject.

Among the beautiful gallinaceous birds it would be desirable to introduce into this colony and acclimatise, the elegant Himalayan pheasants, such as the Impeyan pheasant or monal, the cheer, the purple, white-crested, and black-backed kaleege, the tragopan or horn pheasant, and the Java and black-shouldered peacocks. All these valuable birds have been reared successfully in England, and could readily be acclimatised in Australia.

Mr. Sclater, the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, in his report on the pheasants, observes that, at the commencement of the year 1860, the breeding stock of Himalayan pheasants consisted of three pairs of the black-backed, two pairs of the white-crested, and one pair of the purple kaleege, one pair of cheers, and three of Impeyans. These ten females produced altogether 141 eggs, being twenty-seven less than the same