COMMON KOKLASS PHEASANT 21 



The mandibles are solid black, or dusky black, the legs and feet uniform dark 

 brownish in dried skins. In living and freshly killed birds there is considerable 

 diversity in the colouring of the hind limbs, varying from dark bluish or greyish 

 horny to a dull ash colour, sometimes with a faint pinkish tinge. Irides dark hazel. 

 Weight, 2 lbs. 2 ozs. to 2 lbs. 14 ozs. 



Bill from nostril, 15 mm.; length 580 to 640; expanse, 730 to 760; wing, 235 

 to 255 ; tail, 23s to 285 ; tarsus, 70 ; middle toe and claw, 60. 



Variations. — A typical individual of macrolopha (typical solely because farthest 

 from both castanea and nipalensis) has very narrow shaft-streaks on the mantle 

 feathers, which diminish posteriorly on the plumage and disappear entirely on the 

 lower back and rump, the feathers of these parts being uniform grey. In fact, the 

 central black is narrow everywhere, and the chestnut of the lower plumage is confined 

 to a broad line down the centre of the ventral surface, while all the sandy areas, 

 especially on the lower surface, are clearer and whiter. 



This is not the commonest type of individual, but may be considered as the most 

 generalized and typical of macrolopha macrolopha. 



Elliot's plate of macrolopha shows a bird much too dark for a typical representation. 

 The splitting of the black lines is also atypical, and the upright segregation of the green 

 portion of the crest is an error, the bird not being able to manipulate its occipital 

 plumage in this fashion. Gould's plate is excellent. 



Adult Female. — Crown and occiput black, with a single cross-bar and a broad 

 terminal band rufous buff. In worn specimens the buff tips disappear, leaving these 

 parts quite black. A short, but well-marked occipital crest, varying from brown to 

 warm rufous, the feathers margined or slightly mottled with black. Forehead, broad 

 superciliary extending back to the crest, and the face pinkish or yellowish buff, most 

 of the feathers with a dark band half-way to the tip. Full-plumaged birds have a 

 broad band of feathers starting just behind the eye and extending back, including the 

 ear-coverts and a nuchal zone posterior to the crest, glossy green, with one or more 

 cross-bars of buff. Chin and throat white, with an irregular line of brown dots down 

 each side from the base of the mandibles. These dots coalesce and become solid black 

 margins on the side throat and extend in a band across the posterior margin of the 

 white gular area. The white zone above the two dotted lines extends across the lower 

 cheeks and back over the side neck as an elongated patch of white, ending beyond and 

 just below the ear-coverts. 



The upper neck is pinkish buff with irregular bands of black. Posteriorly the 

 black increases in extent and reduces the buff area, which has become more rufous, to 

 a barbed-arrow shape, while a grey tip appears at the extremity of the feather. 



The lower back and rump are pinkish buff, finely mottled with black, with two 

 wide longitudinal lines of black, separated by a narrow buff shaft-streak. 



The scapulars are black with' chestnut spots and mottling on the inner web, and 

 a pale buff shaft-streak. The wing-coverts are mottled and the inner secondaries 

 continue the pattern of the scapulars with the black gradually diminishing to an 

 irregular, sub-terminal blotch on the outer web. The secondaries are dark brown with 



