194 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



These pheasants live fairly well in captivity, as testified by the records of thirty-two 

 individuals which have been in the possession of the London Zoological Society. The 

 average length of life was two years and eight months, while one bird lived for six years 

 and four months. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — Forehead, crown-feathers bounding lower part of bare facial area, 

 ear-coverts and nape brown. Base of crown-feathers chestnut. The growth of black 

 featherlets is quite dense near the orbit, and the entire under eyelid is white. Narrow, 

 almost concealed, superciliary line, white with brown tips. On the hind neck the brown 

 merges gradually into dark slaty grey, and this on the side neck pales into the greyish 

 white of the sides of the throat and neck. Lores, chin and upper throat dark smoky 

 brown, becoming dead black on the lower throat and extending down the ventral neck 

 to the breast in a narrowing line of glossy steel-blue feathers. 



The grey of the neck changes abruptly on the breast, lower neck and mantle plumage 

 into rich rufous with a wide, terminal, disintegrated fringe of glistening metallic copper. 

 At the base of the fringe an elongated black bar extends some distance out over the web 

 from the tip of the rachis, recalling the hemisphere of mikado. Behind the mantle, on 

 the back and rump, the rufous and copper cease abruptly, giving place to black with a 

 terminal white fringe and two more or less distinct white cross-bars. 



The wings are rather complexly marked. A row of large feathers with a very wide 

 sub-terminal white band forms a conspicuous band defining the antero-interior margin 

 of the wing, some of these feathers being mantle and others true scapulars. Down the 

 inner margin of the wing the feathers retain the white as a narrower fringe until, on the 

 longest scapulars and tertials the white band formed by the greatest coverts is met. 

 Posterior to this the inner secondaries continue the band as grey mottled tips, becoming 

 white again on the larger secondaries in a third bar curving gradually forward across 

 the wing. 



Returning to the mantle-scapular bar, we find the succeeding rows of feathers 

 contributing their part to the white by a cross-bar high up on the feather, but with 

 much of their distal area steel blue, making an alar border of this colour to the white 

 bar. Proceeding outward, over the wing surface, we find a broad oblique band of 

 metallic blue extending across the median coverts, all the remaining coverts being 

 rufous with a metallic copper fringe like the mantle, the fringe dying out towards the 

 greater coverts and along the outer margin of the wing. 



The greater coverts and secondaries are chestnut with a wide sub-terminal black 

 bar and, as we have seen, a still wider terminal white band. The primaries are dark 

 brown, freckled with buff on the outer web. 



The tail-coverts offer an abrupt change from the black and white barred rump, 

 being similar to the rectrices. The entire feather is divided into successive bands of 

 chestnut and grey, averaging 20 mm. each in width, with indistinct, narrow black 

 margins to the two colours. The upper tail-coverts show considerable dark vermicula- 

 tion in the grey bands, and on the lateral rectrices there is an increase of the black 

 pigment together with successively increasing white tips. 



The entire breast is like the mantle ; the belly solid white superficially, but showing 



