462 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The Black-winged oe Japanned Peafowl. — The question whether 

 the so-called Pavo nigripennis is distinct from Pavo cristatus, or merely a 

 variety of that species (for some time a moot point amongst ornithologists), 

 seems to me to have been pretty well settled by a pair of ordinary Peafowl 

 which bred here in the year 1880. These were both common Peafowl, 

 Pavo cristatus, showing no variation in any way ; but out of a brood of 

 three, which they hatched in the summer of 1880, one died, or got killed 

 somehow ; the two others, one a male and the other a female, lived and are 

 still living. Both these birds have all the characteristics of the so-called 

 Pavo nigripennis, the male bird having the dark wings and thighs which 

 distinguish Pavo nigripennis from Pavo cristatus, and the hen the white, or 

 nearly white, plumage of the hen of Pavo nigripennis. Messrs. Hume and 

 Marshall, in their ' Birds of India' (vol. i., p. 80), allude to this subject as 

 follows : — " Dr. King showed me a skin of a white specimen (female) that 

 had been shot in the wilds of Eastern Dim, which precisely resembled the 

 bird that Mr. Elliot gives as the female of another variety commonly known 

 as the Japanned Peacock, Pavo nigripennis, Sclater. This latter variety 

 has never been met with except in captivity. Jn /'. nigripennis the whole 

 of the scapulars and wing-coverts (which in the common Peacock are 

 cream-colour with blackish markings) are black with narrow green edgings, 

 which towards the carpal joint become bluish ; the metallic-green of the 

 back is of a more golden tint, and the thighs are black instead of being pale 

 drab, as in Pavo cristatus. Some people maintain that this is a distinct 

 species, of which the habitat is yet unknown ; others consider it merely a 

 variety which has arisen in captivity in Europe." That Pavo nigripennis 

 is only a variety I think there can be no doubt, but whether it is a variety 

 that arises only in captivity in Europe seems to me much more questionable ; 

 in fact, the white hen mentioned by Messrs. Hume aud Marshall in the 

 above quotation seems to show that wild birds occasionally sport in the same 

 way as those in domestication. If this is so it might partially account for 

 the difficulty of fixing a locality for Pavo nigripennis, which seems to have 

 been felt by Messrs. Salvin and Sclater, the editors of the ' Ibis,' for in the 

 volume for 1878, p. 386, in an editorial note, they say, " We may even hope 

 to ascertain before long the locality of Pavo nigripennis, a bird found in 

 many of our farmyards, but of which the original sedes is a problem yet 

 unsolved." Mr. Sclater, however, seems to think he has solved the problem, 

 for in bis ' List of Vertebrated Animals now or lately living in the Gardens 

 of the Zoological Society,' edition of 1879, he fixes Cochin China as the 

 habitat of Pavo nigripennis. It certainly seems to me, however, that if in 

 domestication Pavo nigripennis appears as only a variety of Pavo cristatus, 

 and a pair, male and female, may, as in the case of my birds, be the 

 produce of a pair of common Peafowl, and of the same brood, that Pavo 

 nigripennis may suddenly crop up anywhere throughout the whole geogra- 



