1914] Beebe: Preliminary Pheasmit Studies. 279 



a white wedge has been driven some distance up the shaft, but 

 this anlage of a splitting of the black stripe is not visible when 

 the feathers are in place. 



In xanthospila and its congeners the central wedge of light 

 color has spread up the entire vane and there are two lines of 

 black instead of one. 



In darwini the third and most complex development of the 

 pattern is found. Two additional lateral white wedges have 

 appeared, splitting the two longitudinal black lines into four — 

 the quadruple pattern. Thus the devolopment and geographical 

 distribution must have been from macrolopha, through xanthos- 

 pila to darwini. 



PUCRASIA MACROLOPHA MACROLOPHA AND ITS ALLIES. 



The Koklass Pheasants from Kumaon and Garhwal (P. mac- 

 rolopha macrolopha) are undoubtedly the most generalized of 

 the entire genus. Going westward and eastward from this 

 point we find the birds becoming more and more specialized in 

 color but not in pattern, until in Afghanistan in the one direc- 

 tion and central Nepal in the other, the two extremes are en- 

 countered. In fact macrolopha is, without question, the center 

 of radius for all the other geographically adjacent members of 

 the genus. For example in a large series of specimens, all from 

 central Kumaon and Garhwal, we find strong hints of the fol- 

 lowing : 



Chestnut darkening ventrally and encroaching on mantle, 

 typical macrolopha back — ^toward biddulphi and cas- 

 tanea. 



Chestnut darkening ventrally and encroaching on mantle, 

 dark back — ^toward nipalensis. 



Distinctly yellow mantle — ^toward xanthospila. 



In many specimens there are distinct shaft-streaks of 

 chestnut not only on the high neck but even low down on the 

 mantle and as we go westward the birds merge into biddulphi. 

 On many Koteguhr birds the ventral chestnut is very wide 

 spread and fully as dark as in castanea. The more extreme 



