340 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL MIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXV. 



The extent of mottling, vermicnlations, or bars on breast, flanks 

 and abdomen seems to vary in every individual ; in some they are 

 hardly perceptible, in others the centre of the breast and abdomen 

 alone is faintly mottled or vermiculated, in others again the greater 

 part of the lower plumage is thus marked, while in one or two the 

 biiff or brown is broken up everywhere with comparatively bold 

 barrings or spots as well as with a sprinkling of white. 



It would appear that these Pheasants take at least two years to 

 acquire their fiill plumage, and that ev3u tha females go through the 

 three moults before acquiring the beautiful black and white, or deep 

 brown and white, under plumage. 



Young Mobles in Second PlmnaKje appear to resemble the females 

 in adult plumage, and to go through the same variations and 

 phases, though in some cases they moult direct from the first to the 

 final plumage, and in others go througli two moults to acquire this 

 without ever assumino; that of the adult female. 



There are two 3'oung males in the B. M. Collection, one from 

 Kuatun, and one from Canton, which app3ar to be changing from 

 the mottled plumage into the adult, though it is evident that this 

 moult would not have been complete for the feathers are parti- 

 coloured, many shelving adult black bases and juvenile mottled tips. 

 On the other hand a young male specimen of the subspecies ripponi 

 shews that it is changing from the more xmiform juvenile garb direct 

 into the adult black and white. 



At ihe same time some j'oung birds in the possession of Mr. E. G. 

 Herbert in Siam, which were brought in as young birds of the year, 

 moulted in the same autumn into the complete male plumage 

 without any intervening stage. 



A very remarkable fact about Mr. E. G. Herbert's birds was that 

 prior to moulting some of the feathers appeared to have assumed 

 a partial adult coloui*abion by the pigmentation of the dead fea,thers ; 

 these bacame marked with white or with black, the same in 

 depth and tone as the feathers which came in their place. 



Distribution. — "South China, Fokien, Chiukiang" (Grant), 

 In my Rsview of this genus I wrote that " the Chinese Silver 

 Pheasant appears to be found from latitude 28° to about latitude 

 22° on the Eastern watershed of the Sahvin, bxit not in the 

 lower lying country adjoining the river between latitude 22° and 

 24;°." " Salwin " is, of course, a lapsus calicmmi for Mekong, West 

 of which River within the latitudes given the Chinese Silver 

 Pheasant is not found. 



It is possible that when the range of habitat of this Pheasant has 

 been more completly worked out, we shall have to extend the area 

 into the Northei-n parts of Siam South and West of the Mekong to 

 latitude 19-50° or even further South. 



From the neishbourhood of Rabeng we get a form of Silver 



