1903. ] JAPANESE LONG-TAILED FOWLS. 233 
pretty, very active, and very healthy, and throve well on ordinary 
food, consisting of oatmeal, chopped meat and vegetables, and 
mixed grain of various kinds. One of the chicks was accidentally 
killed when I turned the hen out of the nest, having got beneath 
its mother’s feet as she was scratching the earth. I examined 
this specimen, and found that the primaries and secondaries of 
the wings were present as short black quills with a little down at 
the tip, but that there was no trace of tail-feathers or tail-coverts, 
nothing but down over the rest of the body. The comb was 
visible at the back of the beak as a slight yellow ridge with six 
teeth. The toes were four in number; the skin on the legs 
was yellow. 
June 23rd. Age 10 days.—Another chick had been lost up to 
this date, having escaped and probably fallen a victim to a cat. 
The feathers of the wings now reached nearly to the end of the 
body, and were chequered i in colour, being marked transversely 
with dark colour and grey alter nately, ‘The tail-feathers, i. ¢. 
rectrices, had begun to sprout in some of the chicks, elsewhere 
there was still only down. The combs appeared no larger. 
July 6th. Age 23 days.—The chicks were now half-fledged: 
another had been lost by escaping, so that only seven survived. 
Feathers were growing on the shoulders and sides of the breast, 
but the head, back, and front of the breast were still downy, with 
the original markings. Tail-coverts also appearmg. Feathers, 
except tails, all barred with dark and grey, so that the general 
appearance was speckled and very inconspicuous against the soil. 
The tail-feathers were dark, nearly black, but not steel blue-black 
like those of the adult. It was interesting to see the chicks scatter 
in all directions, and then crouch down whenever the hen uttered 
her special warning cry, as she did often when she heard a jackdaw 
croak. In four of the chicks the tails were more developed than 
in the rest; in these also the combs were beginning to grow 
higher and to get red. These four proved to be cocks, so that the 
sexual difference begins to show itself at this early age. 
July 28th. Age 1 month 15 days.—The four cocks showed 
their sexual characters a ttle more distinctly, the wattles and 
ear-lobes being indicated by a tinge of red. Tn the three hens 
the combs had not begun to enlarge and showed no red. 
One of the cocks was darker than all the other chicks, and had 
a slender tail, not very long and bent downwards. The hens were 
light-colour ed, with white breasts, their tails being as long as those 
of some of the cocks. Two of the cocks had dark breasts. 
Aug. 4th. Age 1 month 3 weeks.—Chicks now fully fledged. 
In the four cocks reddish tints were appearing in the feathers of 
the back and wings, while in the hens only neutral tints were 
present. The combs i in the cocks were a little more dey eloped, in 
the hens not developed. The tail-coverts in the cocks were growing, 
but not longer than the rectrices, and the sickle- feathers not 
conspicuous. 
The red feathers mentioned above are the beginning of the 
