NEPAL KOKLASS PHEASANT 29 



separation from macrolopha, and one series of six specimens from central Nepal shows 

 the chestnut mantle at its greatest development. In addition to this fact, most of the 

 birds collected at Jemlah and the vicinity in western Nepal are without the chestnut 

 on the mantle, or, if present, it occurs only in irregular spots not more than is found 

 sporadically in individual macrolopha from Garhwal. So the evidence shows that 

 the chestnut-mantled birds are the farthest removed geographically, as well as in 

 colour and pattern, from the central form. 



This entirely does away with the theory that because of the chestnut mantle, 

 castanea and nipalensis are contiguous geographically and are more closely related 

 than to the intervening macrolopha. The great increase of the ventral chestnut in 

 castanea is another character absolutely separating these two forms, except through 

 their common ancestor, macrolopha. 



In order to define this subspecies with any clearness or definiteness, we must 

 wholly ignore the many intermediate individuals, each varying widely, which have 

 been collected in the western part of Nepal in the vicinity of Jemlah. The series 

 which I have examined from considerably farther east shows a more uniform and 

 altogether extreme type of colouring, which we must substitute for that of Gould and 

 others. 



The description which Grant gives may be applied to Jemlah Koklass on the 

 whole, as a first step eastward from macrolopha on the way toward nipalensis. Gould's 

 original description takes us another step, but it is far from the extreme type, which, 

 if anything at all, must stand for nipalensis. As we shall see, there are no characters 

 which mark the latter which are not found in all conditions of gradation, leading 

 to the very palest of macrolopha birds. We thus find male nipalensis characterized 

 by intense generalized melanism, with increased erythrism only on the upper 

 surface. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — Head and neck as in macrolopha, except that the crown and the 

 shorter part of the crest are warm rufous buff. The hind neck and mantle are 

 dark chestnut, the black being confined to the tip and two narrow lateral lines down 

 the centre of the webs. On the upper back the chestnut dies out as a narrow shaft- 

 streak. The back is black with scarcely a trace of white edging, but on the lower 

 back a light margin persists, and on the rump and upper tail-coverts this increases 

 in width and becomes tinged with buff. The chestnut of the mantle is continued 

 directly on to the scapulars, tertiaries and inner secondaries ; on the former as a bright 

 shaft-stripe and on the inner web, increasing and paling posteriorly, until, on the inner 

 secondaries, it covers most of the feather, as a clouded, but still rich rufous. It 

 decreases to a shaft-stripe on the succeeding secondaries, and on the primaries covers 

 the narrow outer webs with a warm rufous buff. The lesser wing-coverts are jet black, 

 the greater dark brown, uniform for the most part, but here and there with an 

 evanescent narrow fringe, white on the lesser, rufous on the greater coverts. 



The tail is entirely free from grey or sandy colour, and only the shorter upper 

 tail-coverts show even the buffy-white fringe of the rump. The longer ones are 

 similar to the central rectrices, chestnut with a central line of black. The chestnut 



