412 Mr. D. G. Elliot o)i Pliasianus iguitus. 



form, presented by Mr. J. R. Reeves, and stated on the stand 

 to have been brought from China ! Before giving a de- 

 scription of the plumage of this example, it will be as well, 

 perhaps, to recall what is published by Latham of this bird 

 in his ' Index Ornithologicus,' Suppl. p. Ixi (1801). It is 

 as follows : — 



" Phasianus IGNITUS. Ph. niger chalybeo-nitens, lateribus 

 corporis mfis, dorso imo igneo-ferrugineo, recti'icibus inter- 

 mediis subfulvis. Habitat in Java?*^ &c. 



The first impression received on looking at the British- 

 Museum specimen was, that, so far as the flanks and belly 

 were concerned (the chief points of specific difference), it 

 was not in perfect plumage ; and I regret that more examples 

 are not available for comparison. The feathers of these 

 parts exhibit an uncertain, irregular, and in some places, I 

 may say, an abnormal style of coloration, that gave rise 

 at once to the belief that either the bird was passing 

 through a transformation incidental to a change of plumage 

 towards the fully adult state, or else to a suspicion, growing 

 stronger as the examination proceeded, that it belonged to a 

 hybrid. On both sides of the breast, below the dark blue, 

 are numerous chestnut feathers whose centres and tips are 

 more or less streaked with ivhite, a hue that cannot surely 

 be considered as proper in that place, although it may be an 

 unsuccessful effort to portray the white central streaks of the 

 flank-feathers observed in the bird I designate in my " Pha- 

 sianidse" as P. ignitus, a bird which, perhaps, was possibly 

 one of its progenitors. The feathers of the abdomen, with the 

 exception of those exactly in tlie middle, are chestnut, tipped 

 or margined with black in a most irregular way, sometimes 

 the apical portion of a feather being chestnut and all the 

 rest black. I judge from this that these featliers are in the 

 process of change to an entirely chestnut hue, possibly like 

 those of P. nobilis. Two specimens of this last, adult males 

 from Borneo, are also in the collection, both of which have 

 the centre of the abdomen black, and the base of the chestnut 

 feathers also of that hue, which is occasionally perceptible 

 through that chestnut colour ; and therefore there is nothing 



