716 LIEUT.-COL. GODWIN-AUSTEN ON [NoV. 28, 



up, with the hope that it will be also figured in the ' Proceedings ' 

 of this Society. 



Mr. Hume may well be proud of having discovered this beautiful 

 addition to the Phasianidse and to the birds of India ; but I much 

 regret that he did not give it the title of munipurensis, so significant 

 of its home, and to which it seems almost restricted, although it no 

 doubt extends eastwards along the main range, the Patkoi, some 

 distance. How close it gets to its nearest ally, Phasianvs ellioti 

 (from Che-kiang in Eastern China), and what other intermediate 

 forms are yet to be found in that vast unexplored tract of forest- 

 clad mountains that intervene between Munipur and the Singpho 

 country, is an interesting point, h. grand field lies here for future 

 travellers and naturalists. Judging from what I have received from 

 the neighbourhood of Brahmakund, and the number of yet unde- 

 scribed shells in my collection, a great change in the fauna from 

 that of the country west sets in here, and extends into that of 

 Szechuen, where Pere David obtained so many new and novel forms 

 of animals and birds. 



Original description. 



"Male. Length 33 inches, expanse 26, tail (of sixteen feathers) 

 from vent 21, wing 8"6, tarsus 2'75, bill from gape 1-3. Weight 

 2 lb. 6 oz. 



" The legs, feet, claws, and spurs (the latter 0'85 inch in length) 

 all a pale delicate drab-brown ; the facial skin an intense crimson ; 

 irides orange ; bill greenish horny, dusky on cere and base of upper 

 mandiljle, and pale yellowish horny towards the tips of both man- 

 dibles. A narrow black band bounds the anterior angle of the bare, 

 velvety, crimson, diamond-shaped patch in which the eye is set ; 

 the forehead, crown, occiput, and ear-coverts are brown ; the 

 feathers of the occiput, especially on the sides of this and a few of 

 those on the crown also, with a dark terminal hair-line, producing a 

 somewhat scaly appearance ; the chin, throat, neck all round, upper 

 breast, and extreme upper part of the back a smoky black ; all the 

 feathers, except those of the chin and quite the upper throat, fringed 

 with metallic blue-black, which, except on the front of the middle 

 and lower throat, is, owing to the overlapping of the feathers, the 

 only colour seen. Just inside the fringe, on all the feathers of the 

 upper parts of the breast and l)ack, there is a triangular or arrow- 

 head black velvet spot ; the interscapulary region is dark metallic 

 pheasant maroon, or red with a fiery crimson sheen, each feather 

 with a similar subterminal velvet-black shaft-spot ; middle and 

 lower back, rump, and all but the longest upper tail-coverts black 

 with a grey-blue sheen, each feather fringed with white ; the longest 

 upper tail-coverts and the tail grey-brown'; the central tail-feathers 

 with eight rather narrow and irregular, mingled black and chestnut 

 transverse bauds^; the next pair, which are eight inches shorter, 



^ Or af?liy grey with a brown tinge. 



^ In my specimen dark chestnut bauds 0"4 inch wide with two parallel black 

 bars on the basal side. 



