JOURNAL 



OF THE 



Bombay Natural History Society. 



Oct. 1919. Vol. XXVI. No. 3. 



THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 



BY 



E. C. Stuart Baker, F.L.S., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 

 Part XXVIl. 



With a Coloured Plate. 

 {Continued from page 337 of Volume XXVI.) 

 Genus —TliAGOPAN. 



Having accepted Beebe's classification of the Pheasants and 

 Partridges founded on the moulting sequence of the tail-feathers, 

 this grand genus heads the Perdicince, or true Partridgtis. 



Like the great majority of Pheasants, however, the two sexes are 

 different in colour. The males are magnificent birds, generally 

 with a great deal of crimson in their plumage, replaced in Cabot's 

 Tragopan by buff". Two small fleshy horns of bright colour lie 

 hidden in the feathers of the crown, but during the-breeding season 

 are erectile and swollen. An aprOn-like lappet hangs from the 

 chin, folded into mere wrinkled skin normally, but exteuding a 

 couple of inches or more during display. 



The females are brown or grey-brown birds, mottled with back, 

 rufous and a little white, and are very game in their general 

 appearance. They have no horns or lappet. In shape the birds of 

 this genus are much like huge partridges ; the tail is a little longer 

 than the wing or about equal to it, and is carried in the same 

 manner as that of the Common Partridge. The legs ai'e very 

 powerful, and are armed with a short blunt spur ; the wings are 

 rou.nded, the first primary the shortest and the fourth and fifth 

 sirb-equal and longest*. The tail is stronwly sfraduated, the central 



• The bastard wing is enormously develcped and o^' a dilferent col ) ir to the rest 

 of tlse wins' in most of the species. 



