In his book pheasants: Their Lives And Homes, Country Life, 1936, Beebe speaks of the sharp vision, excellent hearing, and weariness that has helped the Golden pheasant elude would be human observers and predators, more so than perhaps some other game birds.
Even so, his persistence and birding acumen enabled him to make the following rare observation of a wild cock pheasant performing its incredible lateral display to a hen in the wild. "The cock pheasant fed quietly for a moment and then ran over to the hen and, circling in front, presented his full broadside of glowing hues, being unique amongst pheasants. I could even see the pheasants back open before his cape shut it from view, although he was too far away for the accompanying hiss to reach me." Again referring to the Golden pheasant neck ruff during courtship Beebe says: 'First to one side, then the other, is displayed this magnificent ornament, obscuring the entire head and beak of the pheasant, and leaving visible only the flowing crest of spun gold and the brilliant eye." He also says of the pheasants cape: "Such a phenomenon in the pheasants baffles all our theories, makes naught of our most concentrated researches into this pheasant. And yet, before the world-wide increase of mankind puts an end to the race of Golden pheasants, we may have solved this and the myriad of other problems whose mystery only adds to their fascination."He also aptly said on this subject: "Fortunately, the display of the Golden Pheasant is something we can study at leisure in our game farm specimens.
There are few more beautiful sights than a pen of these gorgeous pheasants dashing about, often in their eagerness leaping over one another's heads and posturing in their statuesque manner before the hens." As the thousands who keep and breed Golden Pheasants know well, the gorgeous breeding display of the cock is a sudden, laterally positioned act where the body appears flattened with the cape, back, and tail feathers spread to provide the female maximum view of his brilliant color and markings. More than 50 years after Beebe's accounts were published, man does not appear to have markedly harmed the Golden Pheasants well-being as he predicted, yet the essence of its ecology remains to be unraveled b
y Chinese or outside researchers. Pheasant expert, Keith Howman, who is regularly in contact with Chinese wildlife scholars and workers, told me the ornithological community may be enlightened by more translated or published information as research into its biology in the- wild progresses. While science temporarily lacks enough information on this pheasant, the enigmatic and unknown only adds to the pheasant's enchantment and popularity among bird breeders and others.
Golden Pheasants are most closely related to the Lady Amherst Pheasant, and unfortunate it is for their preservation that fully fertile hybrids have been regularly produced in captivity in zoos and some private aviaries over over a period of many decades. Impurity in the adult male Golden Pheasant often shows up as a reddish tinge in the crown, lack of distinct barring in the tail, and larger than non-nal size. When I viewed the wild taken pheasant skins available for research at the American Museum, I noted absence of red in the crest except occasionally on the very tip. Since Amherst cocks have a red crest this often transfers when hybridization occurs with the Golden Pheasant.