104 Mr. Frank Finn,


obscurus there, and only two with the scarlet scapulars, both fine

Chinese specimens.


I have no reason to believe that the colour of the

scapulars varies with age, although, as the spurs develop so little

in this species, the age of any fully-coloured specimen is

practically impossible to make out.


In the hen Gold Pheasant the only variation I have

observed is a wash of yellow on the breast of one recently in the

Zoological Gardens ; I may mention that the only one I saw in

Calcutta imported direct from China was identical with European-

bred examples, of which we had some in the Zoological Garden

there. The lieu of the obscuius I have never seen, and the variety

now appears, unfortunately, to be very rare, if not extinct.


There is, however, in the British Museum a very remark¬

able young male, bred, long ago apparently, in the Zooiogical

Gardens. This bird has a normal tail, and a body of uniform

brown, rufous on the head, breast, and upper tail-coverts, with

none of the bold dark pencilling normal in the hens and young

of this species, except a little on the wing-coverts. This may

perhaps be compared to the frequent variety of the domestic

fowl in which the tail is normal, while the rest of the body is

almost uniform cinnamon in both sezes, and this second instance

of a tendency to a similar variation in two closely-allied genera

like Chrysoloplms and Gallus is of much interest.


In the male of the Silver Pheasant, on the other hand, I

have never seen any marked variation ; some specimens are

more strongly pencilled than others, and an immature male

acquired by the Calcutta Zoological Garden in my time was

rather remarkable in assuming a much longer crest and tail than

an adult acquired together with it ; indeed, it was the finest bird

of the species I ever saw, and only by its shorter spurs could

it be known as the junior of its companion. But on the whole

this sex of the Silver Pheasant is remarkably constant; in the

hen, however, I have recently observed a variation which appears

to me of peculiar interest. The normal hen is a dull brown bird

with the lateral tail feathers pencilled black and white; such a

specimen may be seen in the Bird Gallery of the British Museum,

and one such was procured in March last year by the Zoological



