i62 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



skin cases, but more especially when exposed to the light for the same length of time. 

 A male bird which has been mounted in the Sarawak Museum for twenty years has 

 all the dark brown primaries and coverts and the black ventral plumage changed to 

 pale brown, the shafts keeping much lighter than the vanes. The upper plumage has 

 held true, but the black feathers of the head and neck have turned as light brown as 

 those of an average female. 



The photochemical changes which have taken place are even more extreme in the 

 plumage of a mounted female. In a bird which has been exposed to only a moderate 

 amount of light for about eighteen years, the head and neck have become quite white, 

 basally somewhat mottled with brown, while all the upper plumage has become 

 extremely faded on all the uncovered portions of the feathers. The exposed parts of 

 the primaries are a dirty white, and the two or three pairs of central rectrices, which 

 are marred by numerous fault-bars, are irregularly whitened in the vicinity of these 

 imperfections. In both this mounted specimen and in skins which have been kept 

 in light-tight drawers, the blue facial skin of the females has given place to a fleshy 

 tint which would readily be mistaken for a faded red. The entire aspect of the birds 

 is changed, and when we remember the similar case of a radical alteration in the female 

 type of Gennaeus melanonotus (p. 39), we should realize the danger of naming species 

 from old skins, and should constantly keep in mind the danger of possible photophobic 

 plumage in using old type specimens for purposes of comparison. 



Natal Down. — The chick in the down bears a striking resemblance to the young 

 of the Bornean crested fireback, except that the general tone is warm rufous instead 

 of darker. The upper parts are rich rufous, brighter on the head ; the face and under 

 down whitish buff, with a black bar through the face and an indistinct wash of warm 

 buff over the breast. 



Juvenile Plumage.— Here, too, as the dominant character, we find the pair of 

 sub-terminal black ocelli which is so pronounced in the corresponding plumage of the 

 species of Lophura, As usual, the down persists on the head and neck long after 

 the remainder of the body is clothed in the contour feathers of the juvenile plumage. 

 The ventral plumage of this very transient garb is quite downy and rather characterless, 

 being of a pale buff with more or less indications of transverse darker markings, and 

 the mantle and back, while of firmer vaned feathers, are greyish-buff mottled with dark 

 rather than distinctly patterned. The scapulars and middle wing-coverts, however, 

 show this mark at its fullest development, the feather being a rather even vermiculation 

 of jufous and black up to the elongate, solid black ocelli, framed very effectively basally 

 with a black-lined space of rufous, and distally by the solid, broad, golden-rufous 

 terminal band. On the lesser and greater coverts there is less development of pattern, 

 a narrow, black-lined terminal rufous bar taking the place of the ocelli. The wing 

 and tail-feathers are quite dark chestnut, with considerable variation as to black 

 mottling, some individuals showing a large amount, while in others the tail is very dark 

 but wholly unmarked. The rectrices are short, narrow and quite curved, the outer 

 ones being almost sickle-shaped, an interesting reversal of the conditions in the adult 

 male, where the outer ones are straight and the central ones curved. 



