WESTERN KOKLASS PHEASANT 27 



appear to be the only specimens in any museum. They were sent to the East India 

 Company by Dr. William Griffith. I was able to obtain a single moth-eaten skin from 

 a civilian in India, who had two more poorly mounted specimens, males, all of which 

 had been collected in eastern Kafiristan. They approached close enough to this sub- 

 species to fall within its definition rather than to be classed as biddulphi. 



As I have already stated, Gould is in error when he writes that castanea is larger 

 than the average of macrolopha. The measurements are approximately the same, with 

 a slightly larger average in favour of macrolopha, due doubtless to the larger series 

 available. 



Gould's two types vary inter se, almost as much as the form itself departs from 

 typical biddulphi. 



The head, back and wing-coverts are similar to the general average of 7nacrolopha 

 macrolopha, except that the back feathers have wider black centres than most of the 

 darker individuals of the Common Koklass. The rump has very indistinctly marked 

 black centres, and the secondaries are less rufous, more sandy in tone, although none 

 of these characters is the same in the several individuals of castanea. The tail-feathers 

 have much of the chestnut replaced by an extension of the dark brown, except near the 

 base of the feathers. 



In the most extreme of Gould's types the entire upper neck, the mantle and the 

 whole of the ventral surface are uniform dark chestnut, with the exception of the lower 

 sides and flanks, which are more typically 7nacrolopha-\\\i.Q. The bases of all these 

 chestnut feathers are dark brown, and on the lower breast and belly this brown colour 

 becomes dominant, the chestnut being restricted to the tips of the feathers. The under 

 tail-coverts are radically unlike in Gould's two types. In one, and in my specimen, they 

 are almost uniform chestnut ; in the other type, half of the visible portion of the feathers 

 is white. 



Gould's plate C* Birds of Asia," VII. 1854, pi. 54) represents the most extreme of his 

 types very well. Elliot ('' Monograph of the Phasianidae," I. 1879, pi. 29) m^kts. castanea 

 a synonym of Temminck's duvaticeli. This in turn Grant places under nipale^^sis. A 

 glance at the plate, however, shows that it is biddulphi, the restricted chestnut of the 

 ventral plumage setting it apart from castanea, and the light macro lop ha-Wkt upper 

 surface showing that it has nothing to do with the dark-backed eastward offshoot of 

 macrolopha. Elliot's description of the posterior upper parts, " black, the feathers edged 

 with white," does not at all correspond with the plate. 



SYNONYMY 



Pucrasia castanea Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854, P< 99 i Gould, Birds of Asia, VII. 1854, pL 27 ; Sclater, List 

 of Phasianidae, 1863, p. 4; Blyth, Ibis, 1865, p. 28; Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 152; Hume, Stray Feathers, V. 1877, 

 p. 138; Elliot, Ibis, 1878, p. 125 ; Hume, Game-birds India, I. 1879, pp. 165, 166; Grant, Cat. Game-birds Brit. 

 Mus. XXII. 1893, P- 314; Grant, Hand-book Game-birds, I. 1895, p. 285; Blanford, Fauna Brit. India, Birds, 

 IV. 1898, p. 86; Sharpe, Hand-list Birds, I. 1899, p. 36; Finn, Game-birds India and Asia, 191 1, p. 65. 



Pucrasia duvauceli Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 152; Gray, Hand-list Birds, II. 1870, p. 259; Marshall, Ibis, 1879, 

 p. 463. 



Pucrasia macrolopha (van castanea) Fulton, Jour. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc, XVI. 1904, p. 81. 



Pucrasia macrolopha Perreau, Jour, Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc, XIX. 1910, p. 919. 



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



XXV. 1918, p. 539. 



