POLYPLECTRON. 531 



thoroughly cleaning it from all vegetation and rubbish, and taking up their 

 quarters there. They, however, roost on trees at night. Food fruit, ants, 

 slugs, and insects generally. 



Gen. Polyplectron. Tern. 



Head sub-crested ; bill less large and convex, more compressed, the tip 

 deflected over the lower mandible ; wing short; tail long ; tarsus spurred. 



1189. Polyplectron thibetanum (Gm.), Elliot, Mon. Phas. \. 



pi. vi. ; Hume and Dav., Str. F. vi. pp. 432, 521 ; Hume, Str, F. viii. p. 1 10; 

 Hume and Marsh, Game Birds i. p. 105 pi. ; Bingham, Sir. F. ix. p. 195 ; 

 Oates, B. Br. Burm. ii. p. 315. Pavo tibetanus, Gmel., Syst. Nat. i. p. 731. 

 Polyplectron chinquis, Temm., Pig. et Gall. ii. p. 363 ; iii. p. 675 ; Blylh and 

 Wald.y B. Burm. p. 148 ; Inglis and Hume, Str. F. v. p. 40. The GREY 

 PEACOCK-PHEASANT. 



Crown of head subcresied, the feathers thick set ; whole head and neck 

 greyish brown, minutely freckled and stippled with brown ; rest of upper 

 plumage including the wings and tail dark brown, minutely freckled all over 

 with greyish white ; the feathers of the back, scapulars, tertiaries and wing coverts 

 tipped with pale buff and each having near the tip a large roundish violet-blue 

 spot, tinged with a coppery gloss next the buff tip. Each tail feather with a 

 large oval metallic-green patch on each web, surrounded by a blackish and a 

 buff ring; lower plumage pale ochraceous barred with brown. The female is 

 similar, but duller in colour, the spots on the tail are small and inconspicuous, 

 and those on the tail coverts altogether absent, (pates?) Bill with the upper 

 mandible and the tip of the lower one black ; rest of the bill and facial skin pale 

 yellow ; iridcs white ; legs and feet blackish ; in the female dark plumbeous ; 

 the bill horny brown; and the facial skin pale dingy fleshy yellow. (Davison.) 



Sab. The dense hill forests of the Indo-Burmese region, its furthest limits 

 northwards and westwards being the Buxa Doars and the outer slopes of the 

 Bhootanese Himalayas. Eastwards it is not rare in suitable localities in the 

 Eastern Doars, northern portions of Goalpara, Kamrup, and Durrang, and 

 Hume adds possibly, further east. South of the Brahmaputra it occurs in the 

 Garo, Khasia and Naga hills, in Sylhet, Cachar, Hill Tipperah, Chittagong, 

 Arrakan, Pegu and Tenasserim as far south as Tavoy. A closely allied 

 species, P. bicalcaratum, is said to have occurred at Mergui, but this requires 

 confirmation. Hume, however, says that from the southern boundary of 

 Tenasserim to the extreme south of the Malay Peninsula it certainly occurs, 

 and that it may yet prove to occur in the higher hills of Southern Tenasserim. 



Family. MEGAPODID^:. t*\*~c*v ^ 



Birds with large legs and feet, commonly known as Mound-birds ; facial 

 skin nude ; head crestless ; tail short ; tarsi thick and strong ; hind toe on the 



