HYDROPHASIANUS. 219 



Young birds have the crown dull rufous, with a short pale 

 supercilium from above the lores ; hind neck black glossed with 

 dark green ; back and wings as in adults, but rather paler, and 

 the feathers in very young birds fringed with rufous ; lower back 

 and rump dull rufous barred with dusky ; tail concentrically barred 

 with black and buff; sides of face, chin, throat, breast, abdomen, 

 and lower tail-coverts white ; sides of neck, lower neck, and upper 

 breast dull rufous ; ear-coverts grey. 



Bill greenish yellow, tinged with red at the base, and the frontal 

 lappet livid ; irides brown ; legs dull green (Jerdon). 



Length of male 11 ; tail 1'75 ; wing6'25 ; tarsus 2*6 ; bill from 

 gape 1-2. Length of female 12 ; tail 1-85 ; wing 7 ; tarsus 2'7. 



Distribution. The greater part of the Indian Peninsula and east 

 through Assam, Sylhet, Manipur, and Burma to the Malay 

 Peninsula, Siam, Sumatra, Java, and Celebes. This Jagana is 

 wanting in Ceylon, though recorded from Travancore ; it is rare 

 in the North-West Provinces, not known to occur in Kashmir, the 

 Punjab, ISind, or Western Eajputana, and chiefly found in the 

 damper parts of India, where there are permanent marshes or 

 tanks overgrown with floating leaves of water-plants. 



Habits, tyc. A familiar bird, often seen on ponds close to houses, 

 hiding amongst the weeds, or running actively over the leaves of 

 water-lilies or Singhara, and feeding on insects, Crustacea, and, 

 according to Jerdon, largely on vegetable matter, seeds, roots, &c. 

 The cry is peculiar and harsh. This species breeds from June to 

 September, and lays, as a rule, four eggs in a nest of weeds, 

 roughly put together, placed on floating leaves or amongst rushes. 

 The eggs are very glossy, buff or olive, marked with numerous 

 black or dark brown lines, irregularly distributed in a confused 

 network, and the average measurement is 1*47 by 1'03. 



Genus HYDROPHASIANUS, Wagler, 1832. 



This is distinguished by having a slenderer bill than Metopidiits, 

 no lappet, and a shorter hind claw, and also by the 1st and 4th 

 primaries being produced at the end, the first into a filamentous 

 lanceolate appendage about an inch long, the 4th into an attenuated 

 point. There is a strong sharp spur on the wing at the bend. 

 An important character of this genus is that the breeding-plumage 

 is quite distinct from that worn at other seasons, and that, in the 

 nuptial garb, which is assumed by a change of colour in the 

 feathers without any moult, the tail-feathers are greatly elongated. 

 Sexes alike in plumage at all times, but the female larger thau the 

 male. 



A single species. 



1429. Hydrophasianus chirurgus. The Pheasant-tailed Jacana. 



Tringa chirurgus, Scop. Del. Flor. et Faun. Insub. ii, p. 92 (1786). 

 Parra luzoniensis et P. sinensis, Gm. Syst. Nat. i, p. 709 (1788). 



