284 Zoologica : N. Y. Zoological Society. [I ; 15 



c — Mantle with conspicuous white, arrow shaft-marks, or, 

 soemmerringii a pale shaft line or terminal streak. 



d — Central one or two pairs of rectrices with very indis- 

 tinct cross-bars (except mikado), and strikingly unlike 

 the 3rd and other lateral pairs. 



Comparing these characters with those of Phasianus for 

 example, we find the lateral rectrices with little or no rufous and 

 barred throughout ; the central rectrices not differing from later- 

 al ones and with distinct cross-bars ; the breast never decidedly 

 distinct in pigmentation from the rest of the ventral surface; 

 the mantle never with white or pale shaft-streaks. 



The disintegrated, hair-like condition of the rump feathers 

 in the males of true Phasianus becomes an important character, 

 diagnostic of the genus when the soemmerringii group is re- 

 moved. This is wholly absent from the soemmerringii group and 

 Syrmaticus as I define it. As to intra-generic differences; (1) 

 ellioti, humiae, burmanicus and mikado possess sixteen rectrices, 

 while reevesi and soemmerringii have eighteen. In this instance 

 the remarkable resemblance,' between the females certainly is a 

 more fundamental and important character than the difference 

 of a pair of tail feathers, when, to quote but a single illustration, 

 we remember that in the genus Gallus, varius possesses one pair 

 of rectrices more than gallus. (2) The extreme difference in 

 color of the males would seem to militate against uniting them 

 in a single genus, until we consider the parallel case of Chrysolo- 

 phus where the Golden and Amherst males present very diverse 

 patterns and colors. The genus Syrmaticus as I define it seems a 

 logical assemblage of forms, capable certainly of sub-generic di- 

 vision, but on the whole differing in no more important char- 

 acters than occur in other phasianine genera. 



Genus Gallus. 

 See note under Chalcophasis, p. 270. 



Gallus aeneus, temminckii and violaceus are neither "dis- 

 tinct species" nor "domestic varieties" but first generation hy- 

 brids between a wild cock varius and a domestic hen, known to 

 the Javanese as Bekisars. 



