1914] Beebe: Preliminary Pheasant Studies. 273 



the single aberrant captive specimen from an unknown locality, 

 now in the Leyden Museum, as distinct from the Bornean Crest- 

 less Fireback. 



If, on the other hand, such characters as have been utilized 

 in the separation of these two forms are recognized as valid, 

 then I should logically be compelled to distinguish three or four 

 other "species" based on equally variable and, it seems to me, 

 insufficient characters. I have in mind, one male bird with half 

 the mantle of clear chestnut, and another full-grown male with 

 the central rectrices half chestnut, instead of pure white, both 

 wild shot birds. It is wholly impossible to separate the Sumat- 

 ran, birds on the ground that the shaft-stripes of the side and 

 flank feathers are predominately buffy or chestnut rather than 

 white. Over fifty per cent, of the Malayan birds show consider- 

 able chestnut on these feathers, and an adult male sent to me 

 in the flesh from Johore to the Raffles Museum, Singapore, ex- 

 hibited a greater amount of chestnut-red flank markings than I 

 have seen on any Sumatran bird. Such being the case, I see no 

 logical possibility of distinguishing more than a single species 

 of this northern Crested Fireback. As to sumatrana as defined 

 by Buttikofer,! the variation inter se of the five male specimens 

 which he lists is such as to give but slight value to the status of 

 this form. I have seen at least a half dozen adult specimens in 

 the museums of the East and elsewhere, which show as much 

 variation in the chestnut and white of the rectrices and the 

 amount of red on the flanks as in the above mentioned five birds. 

 As these specimens were divided between Sumatra and Pahang, 

 I see no course open but to consider them as aberrant variations 

 of rufa in the direction of ignita. 



LOBIOPHASIS BULWERI. 



The sequence of plumage of this splendid Bornean bird, the 

 White-tailed Wattled Pheasant, has heretofore been rather mis- 

 understood. The fully adult plumage is acquired at the third 

 annual moult. 



The downy chick moults into a juvenile plumage of rufous 

 brown, finely vermiculated with black. This stage is especially 

 characterized by the rich golden rufous of the tips of the wing- 



1. Notes from Leyden Museum, XVII. 1895, p. 177. 



