28 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



upper breast, merging at the sides with the blue-grey of the mantle. Posteriorly 

 the breast, upper belly and corresponding sides of the body are intense crimson, marked 

 only with very narrow shaft-lines of pale green. Behind this area the lower belly and 

 sides down to the thigh, are brilliant, clear apple green. 



The whole head is chiefly black, with no white or cream colour except a trace on the 

 nape. The upper body plumage is uniform blue-grey, with conspicuous shaft-stripes, 

 white without any tinge of green. The wing-coverts are bright, clear green throughout, 

 and the middle and greater coverts are very long, with recurved, decomposed barbs. 

 Black is wholly lacking on the visible portion of these coverts, the only character being 

 the slightly paler green shaft-stripe. The concealed bases show a rufous-brown tinge, 

 while still more basally the feather becomes blue-grey with the narrow black lines 

 bordering the shaft. The covert and tail fringes of crimson are well developed and the 

 under tail-coverts are brilliant crimson. 



The description is of the specimen designated as the type and is a fully adult male 

 bird. No. 179A in the mounted collection of the Musee Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle. 

 It is marked ''Yunnan. Prince H. d'Orleans, 1896." 



Measurements of this specimen are : culmen, 12 ; wing, 215 ; tail, 132 ; tarsus, 64 ; 

 middle toe and claw, 53 mm. There are two spurs on the right leg and a single one 

 on the left, each about half an inch in length. The specimen is considerably moth-eaten 

 and in a bad state of preservation. 



A second specimen of Ithagenes kuseri is No. 179B in the same collection. It is a 

 young bird in its first year, the spurs being mere flat nodules. It corresponds in all 

 respects with the type, except that there is an even greater infusion of black throughout 

 the plumage. The tail, which is more perfect than in the other bird, is somewhat longer. 

 Its label gives ''Tsekon, Yunnan. R. P. Soulie, 1897." This locality is in the north- 

 western finger of Yunnan, on the Mekong River, in latitude 28° north and longitude 

 about 99° east, thus giving a definite location for the species. 



Since naming this species Mr. Eagle Clarke has been kind enough to send me a 

 rather young male Ithagenes in full moult, which bore the locality "Yunnan" on the 

 label. Upon careful examination I came to the conclusion that it was undoubtedly 

 kuseri^ but an abnormal individual. In no species of this genus is there normally an 

 increase in pectoral scarlet after the first post-juvenile moult, but in two or three 

 individuals I have found an abnormal condition of pigmentation in young birds, and this 

 seems another ; the degenerate rusty-buff pigment stains on the pectoral plumage being 

 replaced by crimson in the feathers of the succeeding moult. 



This bird is a male in exceedingly worn plumage undergoing the autumn moult 

 of the second year. The throat and breast are a mixture of buff and blue-grey, with 

 numerous half-concealed spots of crimson on the new growing feathers. Half the 

 primaries have been shed, while the tail shows some mutilation, only two right rectrices 

 remaining. Through ill nourishment or some other cause, the bird entered its post- 

 juvenile moult with very impure coloration and is apparently partly regaining the 

 normal colours in the present moult. Two young male birds from Nepal which I have 

 examined show the same thing, an excess of buff in place of the crimson. 



Kuser's Blood Partridge combines some of the characters of cruentus with the 

 brilliant green patch of geoffroyi, but it differs in many ways from both. From 



