MALAYAN CRESTED FIREBACK 125 



margin, which is followed successively by an equally wide band of chestnut, and a 

 narrow zone of steel-blue ; the remainder being dull black. Primaries and secondaries 

 are brownish-black unmarked. Two inner pairs of tail-feathers and the inner web and 

 tip of the third, pure white ; the remaining rectrices dull jet black. Feathers of the 

 side, breast, sides of body and the flanks with a conspicuous shaft-stripe on the visible 

 terminal third occasionally expanded distally, pure white in some cases, or chestnut, 

 or a mixture of the two. Abdomen, thighs, under wing and tail-coverts sooty black, 

 with no metallic gloss, or a small amount on the under tail-coverts. 



Mandibles, spurs and claws yellowish horn, the former darker at the base ; irides 

 red ; facial area bright smalt blue ; legs and feet red, especially strong on the front 

 of the tarsi and toes, the posterior surfaces out of the breeding season being reddish 

 white. Weight, 5 lbs. Length, 720; extent, 940; bill from nostril, 23; wing, 286; 

 tail, 266 ; tarsus, 109 ; middle toe and claw, 65. Spurs straight and stout, average 

 length, 38. 



Male Plumage Variations. — Although this species does not show any greater 

 variations from the normal than many of the other pheasants, yet atypical individuals 

 have caused great confusion. After careful comparison of all the specimens I could 

 find in the museums of the Far East, of Europe and of America, together with those 

 I was able to collect, I can find no sufficient grounds for separating the Sumatran from 

 the Malayan birds, nor of recognizing the single aberrant captive specimen from an 

 unknown locality, now in the Leyden Museum, as distinct from the Bornean crestless 

 fireback. 



If, on the other hand, such characters as have been utilized in the separation 

 of these two forms are recognized as valid, then I should logically be compelled to 

 distinguish three or four other '' species " based on equally variable, and, it seems to 

 me, insufficient characters. I have in mind one male bird with half the mantle of clear 

 chestnut, and another full-grown male with the central rectrices half chestnut instead 

 of pure white. It is wholly impossible to separate the Sumatran birds on the grounds 

 that the shaft-stripes of the side and flank feathers are predominately bufly or chestnut 

 rather than white. Over fifty per cent, of the Malayan birds show considerable chestnut 

 on these feathers, and an adult male sent from Johore to the Raffles Museum, Singapore, 

 for mounting, exhibited a greater amount of chestnut-red flank markings than I have 

 ever seen on any Sumatran bird. Such being the case I see no logical possibility of 

 distinguishing more than a single species of this northern Crested Fireback. As to 

 smnatrana as defined by Biittikofer,^ the variation inter se of the five male specimens 

 which he lists is such as to give but slight value to the status of this form. I have 

 seen at least a half-dozen adult specimens in the museums of the East and elsewhere 

 which show as much variation in the chestnut and white of the rectrices and the amount 

 of red on the flanks as in the above-mentioned five birds. As these specimens were 

 divided between Sumatra and Pahang, I see no course open but to consider them as 

 aberrant variations of rufa in the direction of ignita. 



Female. — Head, neck, mantle and lesser wing-coverts uniform chestnut. Re- 

 maining parts of the upper plumage and wings finely vermiculated with black, this 



1 "Notes from Leyden Museum," XVII. 1895, p. 177. 



