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Updated: May 12, 2025
The heart of the Himalayas, the haunts of some of the most beautiful birds in the world, the tragopans, the blood and impeyan pheasants lies within the limits of Nepal, a little country which time and time again has bade defiance to British attacks, and still maintains its independence. From its northern border Mt.
Selection evolved the remarkable protective coverings of the armadillo, turtle, crocodile, porcupine, hedgehog, &c.; it formed alike the rose and its thorn, the nut and its shell; it developed the peacock's tail and the deer's antlers, the protective mimicry of various insects and butterflies, and the wonderful instincts of the white ants; it gave the serpent its deadly poison and the violet its grateful odour; it painted the gorgeous plumage of the Impeyan pheasant and the beautiful colours and decorations of countless birds and insects and flowers.
The commercial value of an impeyan skin has varied from five dollars to twenty dollars, according to the number received annually. In 1876 an estimate placed the monthly average of impeyans received in London at from two to eight hundred. In such a case as Nepal, direct protective laws are of no avail.
Then, if ever, we realize that the time of the bird and the beast is passing, the acme of evolution for these wonderful beings is reached, and at most we can preserve only a small fragment of them. To the millinery hunter, what the egret is to America, and the bird of paradise to New Guinea, the impeyan pheasant is to India the most coveted of all plumages.
In the highest ranges the snow-cocks, the tragopans, the blood-pheasant, and the glorious monaul or Impeyan pheasant abound. The foothills are the happy hunting-grounds of the ancestral cock-a-doodle-doo.
Thus it is that the London feather sales still list these among the most splendid of all living birds. And shame upon shame, when we read of 80 impeyan skins "dull," or "slightly defective," we know that these are female birds.
Amongst these the visitor will find, the horned and black-headed pheasants of India, the American turkey, the pintados of Africa and Guinea, and the pheasants from the north of Asia that live upon bulbous roots, known as the Impeyan pheasants. These birds inhabit both hemispheres, and specimens of the different varieties are grouped in the cases.
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