the Genus Macropygia. 225 



by a ring of carmine ; orbital skin leaden blue ; bill and legs 

 purplish pink. 



Hab. Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 



This is an outlying race of M. phasianella, and has, per- 

 haps, departed more than any of the other races from the 

 original type. 



Mr. Blyth has an interesting note on its habits in confine- 

 ment, in the J. A. S. B. vol. xv. p. 371. 



The next species seems naturally to find a home in this 

 group, but for the fact that its sexes differ. If it is not 

 included here, it must stand in a group by itself. 



9. Macropygia ruficeps. 



Macropygia ruficeps, Temm. PI. Col. 561 (1835) ; Nichol- 

 son, Ibis, 1881, p. 155 ; Sharpe, Ibis, 1890, p. 137. 



Macropygia assimilis, Hume, Str. Feath. ii. p. 441 (1874); 

 Oates, Bds. Burm, ii. p. 296. 



Adult male. General colour above dark chestnut, almost 

 brown on the back ; head conspicuously paler ; nape, mantle, 

 sides of head and breast darker, with a vinaceous tinge, and 

 with metallic green or amethyst reflections : beneath cinna- 

 mon-rufous, with a slightly vinous tinge, whitish on the 

 throat, and the pectoral feathers more or less broadly tipped 

 with white. 



Younger males, nearly adult, differ in having some of the 

 feathers of the nape and mantle with bars of dark metallic 

 green or purple, giving a spotted appearance, and also a 

 trace of very dark metallic barrings on the outer edges of 

 the breast-feathers. Wings brown, wing-coverts broadly 

 edged with, and the margins of the inner web of the pri- 

 maries and the axillaries, rufous. Yet younger males are 

 rather darker in plumage and have the bars more pro- 

 nounced; and the breast is also black-spotted as in the 

 female. 



Adult female. Head and tips of wing-coverts bright 

 reddish chestnut; nape, back and tail brown; mantle the 

 same, freckled with pale brown ; upper tail-coverts narrowly 

 tipped with chestnut or rufous : beneath more or less 

 uniform cinnamon-rufous ; the feathers of the throat and 



