1112 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



black, the outermost feather with a faint suggestion only of mottled 

 bars of buff on the inner web, these increasing in extent until 

 the whole of the inner secondaries are mottled black and buff. 

 Rump like the back but less broken with buff; tail mottled black, 

 or brown, and buff, the mottling decreasing in extent on the outer 

 tail feathers which are fairly distinctly barred with broken black 

 and buff. Upper breast and edge of flanks buff speckled with 

 black or brown like the neck ; flanks, where covered with wing, 

 mottled with black ; remainder of lower parts pale, sandy buff, 

 often slightly darker on the under tail coverts which are sometimes 

 speckled with dark brown. 



Irides yellow, dingy to almost golden, bill like that of the male 



but paler and often fleshy towards the base of the lower mandible; 



legs dingy yellow or straw colour. Wing 18-2" to 14"50": bill 



.at front 1-50" to 1-54" and from gape 2-2" to 2-5"; tarsus 5-6" 



or over: tail 6-5" to 7-25". 



The measurements given above for males ani females, which 

 are taken from a series of 14 males and 11 females, all fully adult, 

 would seem to shew that the females are very little larger than the 

 males, but this is not really the case as she is a far heavier and 

 more bulky bird. I have two records of exceptionally heavy 

 cocks, one shot by Mr. Mundy in Dibrugarh, Assam, and another 

 by Mr. J. Harrison of the same district, which both weighed 

 between 3^ and 3| lbs. Most males, however, are less than 8 lbs. 

 in weight, young cocks of the year seldom exceeding 2^ lbs. 

 Females, on the contrary run up to 5 lbs., a weight which has been 

 recorded by Mr. A. Primrose and others ; they often exceed 

 4 lbs. and even females of the first year seldom weigh less than 

 3^ lbs. 



Young male. — The young male is at first like the female and 

 commences to assume the adult male plumage in the second year^ 

 that is in its first spring moult, but probably often reverts, more 

 or less, to female plumage in its autumn moult, retaining, how- 

 ever, the white wing-coverts of the adult male. 



The complete adult plumage of tihe male is assumed in the most 

 irregular manner, and at the first spring moult the young cock bird 

 vaa^j assiime any portion of the adult plumage retaining elsewhere 



