ill be found.

A very beautiful variety which seems to have arisen abruptly in
domestication is the so-called "japanned" or black-shouldered peacock named
_Pavo nigripennis_ by Mr. Sclater. In some respects it is intermediate
between _P. munticus_ and _P. cristatus_ and apparently "breeds true" but
never has been found in a wild state. Albino specimens are by no means
unusual and are a feature of many zooelogical gardens.

Peacocks have been under domestication for many centuries and are mentioned
in the Bible as having been imported into Palestine by Solomon; although
the bird is referred to in mythology, the Greeks probably had but little
knowledge of it until after the conquests of Alexander.

In the thick jungle only a few hundred yards from our camp on the Salween
River I put up a silver pheasant (_Euplocamus nycthemerus_), one of the
earliest known and most beautiful species of the family Phasianidae. Its
white mantle, delicately vermiculated with black, extends like a wedding
veil over the head, back and tail, in striking contrast to the blue-black
underparts, red cheek patches, and red legs.

This bird was formerly pictured in embroidery upon the heart and back
badges of the official dresses of civil mandarins to denote the rank of the
wearer, and is found only in southern and western China. It is by no means
abundant in the parts of Yuen-nan which we visited and, moreover, lives in
such dense jungle that it is difficult to find. The natives sometimes snare
the birds and offer them for sale alive.

We also saw monkeys at our camp on the Salween River, but were not
successful in killing any. They were probably the Indian baboon (_Macacus
rhesus_) and, for animals which had not been hunted, were most
extraordinarily wild. They were in large herds and sometimes came down to
the water to skip and dance along the sand and play among the rocks. The
monkeys invariably appeared on the opposite side of the river from us and
by the time we hunted up the boatmen and got the clumsy raft to the other
shore the baboons had disappeared in the tall grass or were merrily running
through the trees up the mountain-side.

The valley was too dry to be a very productive trapping ground for either
small or large mammals, but the birds were interesting and we secured a
good many species new to our collection. Jungle fowl were abundant and
pigeons exceedingly so, but we saw no ducks along the river and only two
cormorants.

Very