6o A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — Top of the head and elongated, stiffened crest black, glossed 

 on the exposed portions of the feathers with metallic purplish blue. Contour feathers 

 of the upper plumage finely vermiculated with black and white in equal proportions, 

 so finely on the exposed portions that the general appearance is of a uniform grey. 

 The areas thus characterized are the back and sides of the neck, mantle, back, 

 rump, shorter upper tail-coverts, scapulars, lesser and medium wing-coverts. The 

 alternate lines extend obliquely across the vanes. Basally they become coarser, and 

 the black increases until it is dominant. Primaries and their coverts blackish brown, 

 with irregular, confused white vermiculation. Secondaries black, with narrow but 

 stronger white Tines, those on the outer web often split longitudinally. Tertiaries 

 gradually merge into the greyish vermiculation of the back. 



Tail of sixteen feathers, moderately long, curved and compressed. Central pair 

 pale buffy-white, except for the basal three-fourths of the outer web, which is 

 vermiculated with fine black lines. On the succeeding feathers this black increases, 

 until about the third pair it becomes dominant, especially on the outer web. On the 

 outer, shorter rectrices the white is reduced to irregular coarse vermiculations on 

 both webs. The tips of the second and third pairs remain clear buffy white, however. 



Chin, throat, lower neck and remaining under-plumage black with a faint 

 bluish gloss. Sides of the neck and breast with wide shaft-stripes, confined almost 

 altogether to the outer webs of the feathers. Mandibles greenish horn colour, 

 irregularly blackening toward the base. Nasal cere greyish. Entire facial skin bare, 

 and brilliant scarlet in colour, covered with numerous finger-like papillae. At the 

 breeding season this brilliant ornament is swollen and extended into three well- 

 marked wattles or projections, one superior and anterior to the eyes, a second at 

 the extreme posterior portion, and the third gular, hanging down below the gape. 

 Lower eyelid pale bluish. Iris hazel-red in fully adult birds at the breeding 

 season. Legs and feet usually flesh-colour, spurs darker. Weight, 2^ to 3 lbs. 

 Length, 630 to 740 mm. ; bill from nostril, 23 ; wing, 250 ; tail, 290 ; tarsus, 85 ; 

 middle toe and claw, 65; spurs, 15 mm. 



Variations. — The commonest variation among fully adult birds from well within 

 the limits of distribution, is in the amount of striping on the under surface. 

 From being confined to the sides of the neck and breast, this may extend over all 

 the ventral plumage. The markings of the central tail-feathers are never exactly 

 alike in any two birds. In fully adult males from localities in the very centre of 

 distribution I have seen the entire webs covered with the markings, while from a 

 near-by locality the birds would show the more normal, clear, whitish inner web 

 and tips. When we approach the boundaries we at once begin to see the effects 

 of hybridization — with horsfieldi on the north and west, and nycthemerus on the 

 east, and the variations as a consequence become innumerable. 



Adult Female. — Top of head and long crest rufous brown, mottled with black ; 

 remainder of the upper plumage olive-brown, very faintly mottled with black ; all of 

 the feathers of the upper and side neck and mantle with a conspicuous white shaft- 



