KASHMIR KOKLASS PHEASANT 25 



tail tends to become diminished and obliterated in biddulphi. In many ways the majority 

 of specimens of biddulphi are more akin to castanea than to macrolopha, as we may see 

 from the following comparison. 



P. biddulphi presents the following characters : 



macrolophaASke. castanea-Vike. 



Pale-shafted scapulars. Chestnut on mantle. 



Grey ventral plumage. Secondaries with reduced chestnut. 



Rectrices with reduced chestnut. 



Darkening of chestnut. 



Since Captain Marshall described this form thirty-five years ago, little has been 

 recorded of its habits. Baker records that, like the Common Koklass, the Kashmir bird 

 nests in forests of pine and fir, and lays its eggs in a collection of leaves and rubbish 

 under a thick bush or near a tree. The eggs are usually five or six in number. A set 

 of six averaged 49*8 by 36*2 mm. These birds keep close to the same ground, and find 

 their food in the same forest glades day after day. 



SYNONYMY 



Pucrasia macrolopha Adams (nee Lesson), Proc. Zool. Soc. 1859, p. 186 ; Davidson, Ibis, 1898, p. 39; Ward, 

 Jour. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc, XVII. 1907, p. 944. 



Pucrasia biddulphi Marshall, Ibis, 1879, pp. 461, 463 ; Marshall, Jour. fur. Orn. 1879, p. 424; Marshall, Stray 

 Feathers, VIII. 1879, p. 445 ; Hume, Stray Feathers, VIII. 1879, p. 449; Grant. Cat. Game-birds Brit. Mus. XXII. 

 1893, p. 313 ; Grant, Hand-book Game-birds, I. 1895, p. 284; Blanford, Fauna Brit. India, Birds, IV. 1898, p. Z6\ 

 Sharpe, Hand-list Birds, I. 1899, p. 36. 



Pucrasia macrolopha biddulphi Beebe, Zoologica, I. No. 15, 1914, p. 278 ; Baker, Jour. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. 



XXV. 1918, p. 535. 



VOL. HI E 



