i8 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



absent in the primaries or reduced to a narrow outer edging. In the secondaries this 

 mottling of pale rufous brown occupies most of the outer web and the rim of the inner 

 one. Under wing-coverts uniform dark brown. The rectrices, away from the mottled 

 edges of the feathers, are of a similar uniform dark shade. On all the smaller, mottled 

 contour feathers a distinct purplish sheen or gloss is visible when viewed very obliquely, 

 the tint being the same whether observed from the anterior or posterior point of view 



Mandibles black, sometimes with tips and bases dull reddish. Cere and gape 

 yellow-carmine, pale salmon in winter. Iris, hazel brown. Legs and toes, intense 

 carmine, paler in winter. Claws, dark horn at base, shading into black. 



Length, 394-420(407); wing, 179-197(188); tail, 140-154(147); bill from nostril, 

 9-1 1 (10); tarsus, 56-70 (63); middle toe and claw, 54-57 (56) mm. 



Weight, 12 oz. to i lb. i oz. 



Over half of the females show no signs of spurs ; 20 per cent, more have a single 

 blunt nodule on each leg, while others show + 2, o + i, and i + 2. Very rarely 

 they are fully developed into sharp functional spurs. 



Colour Variation. — The female shows more hints of the adult masculine hue 

 and pattern than are at first apparent. Seldom is the crimson colour altogether lacking, 

 either as decidedly crimson feathers or as a strong rosy wash of the feathers of chin, 

 throat, and face and more rarely on the breast. Instead of an exceptional case, 

 suggesting, as Ogilvie-Grant thinks, the masculization of plumage in a barren female, 

 such coloration is rather the rule in western individuals. In the hens with the largest 

 amount of crimson, there is a correlated brightening of the cinnamon of the crown, 

 face and throat. Nepalese specimens show distinct traces of red on the rectrices and 

 under tail-coverts. 



The area of the grey nuchal patch is inconstant and in the variability both of the 

 dark mottling and of the grey colour, individual cruentus females approach closely to 

 the hens of geoffroyi and sinensis. The plate in Gould's " Birds of Asia " shows an 

 extreme of the former variation. 



In the clear pectoral area, the pattern of the male is indicated by the pale shaft- 

 stripes and in many feathers by a decided concentration of black pigment on each side 

 of this central stripe. 



" EARLY PLUMAGES OF ITHAGENES 



The Blood Partridges are almost the only genus of birds lying within the limits 

 of my research which have not been extensively kept or bred in captivity, so that the 

 changes of plumage have heretofore never been observed, nor even described. 



Natal Down. — Chick about a week old. General colour scheme ; head and neck 

 grey and black, body rufous. 



Loral and malar streak, circle around eye, large infra-auricular spot and line 

 extending backward around the nape, centre of crown and wide nuchal band brownish- 

 black. Remainder of head, throat and neck pale grizzled grey. Beginning abruptly 

 at the lower neck all round, and backward over entire body, the down is dull rufous 



