346 A CONTKIBUTION TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF NEPAL. 



Young. — A chick captured on the 10th of June, whose mnfr 

 measured only two inches, had the feet orange and the bill 

 greenish yellow horny ; the head was rufous brown ; the body 

 above dark brown ; each feather of the wing-coverts and scapu- 

 lars having^ a blackish subterminal bar and a fulvous tip ; 

 beneath sullied fulvous. Young birds of both sexes about three 

 months old resemble the female, but have the bill livid at tip, 

 the orbital skin pale fleshy red and the feet livid brownish. At 

 this stage the black subterminal bars on the upper feathers are still 

 well marked. The young male assumes the black plumage 

 when about five months old (such at least was the case in two 

 specimens I had in confinement), but at this age it still shows 

 traces of the original brown colour about the feathers of the 

 neck and upper back, and in this state it probably represents 

 Latham's "Nepal Pheasant" (Ind.Orn. II., 632). 



The adult male of this species differs from G. albocristatus in 

 having a small blach crest instead of an ample white one ; in the 

 white tips to the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts 

 being much narrower and further apart ; and in the tarsi being 

 more slender. From melanotus it differs in having the rump 

 and upper tail-coverts white tipped ; in the feathers of the throat 

 and breast being darker and more grey ; and in having the tarsi 

 much more slender. 



From horsfieldi it diff^ers conspicuously in having the feathers 

 of the throat and breast greyish white and lanceolate instead of 

 pure black and rounded ; and in having the rump and upper 

 tail-coverts much more narrowly tipped with white. 



The adult female resembles melanotus much more closely than 

 either albocristatus or liorsfieldii. It differs from melanotus in 

 having the feathers of the upper surface more broadly margined 

 with greyish white ; the middle tail feathers are more broadly 

 vermicellated, though not so prominently as in albocristatus, 

 the edgings to the feathers of the lower surface contrast more, 

 and the rump contrasts more with the middle tail feathers, 

 in this respect recalling horsfieldi, but in no other. 



The bird I have above described is, no doubt, the Phasiamis 

 leucomelanus of Latham, Ind. Orn. II., 633. Kirkpatrick, in 

 his " Account of the Kingdom of NepaF^ (1^1 Ij P- 132) gives 

 a good figure of this Kalij, showing its distinctive points, viz., 

 black crest, white-barred lower back, and grey- white throat and 

 breast, and says : " The Khalidge is met with in the 

 thickets which overrun the gorges of the mountains near Noa- 

 kote/' &o. Mr. Hodgson, curiously enough, seems to have 

 overlooked the distinctness of the species. In his drawings, 

 now in Mr. Hume's possession, he gives an excellent figure of 

 our bird, but labels it Gallophasis albocristatus (!), an impos- 



