TIBETAN BLOOD PARTRIDGE 



Ithagenes tibetanus Baker 



Name. — Specific : tibetanus, from the locality of the type specimen. 



Type.— "The Sela Range, above Tawang, south-east Tibet," Baker, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, XXXV. 1914, 

 p. 18. The type is in the Museum of the Bombay Natural History Society. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



This Blood Partridge is known from only a single male specimen collected by 

 Captain Molesworth, who reports that he saw a number of others. It was secured at 

 a high elevation in Tibetan territory just east of Bhutan. How far it ranges westward 

 toward the Himalayan species, or eastward toward the haunts of Kuser's Blood 

 Partridge we do not know. We are also ignorant of its status, whether it is in reality 

 a good species or whether it grades into any other form. 



The Tibetan bird is described by Mr. Baker as differing from cruentus in having 

 the lores and superciliaries crimson instead of black and in having no black line under 

 the eye ; the posterior ear-coverts are grey and white, and not black and white. There 

 is much more crimson on the breast than in the birds to the west, and the flanks 

 and lower breast are almost wholly grey, the green being reduced to narrow stripes. 

 There is also less green on the wings. The crimson hue of the feathers of the throat 

 extends quite to the base, and is not, as in cruentus, confined to the visible portions 

 of the web. 



From Kuser's Blood Partridge the Tibetan bird differs in the paleness of the 

 ventral plumage, the crimson being confined to the breast and not extending to the 

 throat and fore-neck. The lores are crimson instead of black, and the superciliary 

 streak is wholly crimson and not partly black. The black gorget instead, as in kuseri, 

 of extending from the top of the ear-coverts completely around the throat, is present 

 only to the extent of a few dark grey markings on the throat. In size this bird agrees 

 with both crtientus and kuseri. 



Ithagenes tibetanus Baker, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, XXXV. 1914, p. 18; Baker, Ibis, 191 5, p. 122; Baker, Tour. 

 Bomb. Nat. His. Soc, XXIV. 1916, p. 399. 



26 



