230 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



wedge of chestnut springing from the shaft. Inner web plain brownish-black or mottled 

 with buff. The larger black areas are often glossed with purplish-blue- 



Tail rich rufous, mottled with black. The black on the central feathers sometimes 

 takes the form of two broad longitudinal bars on the inner web and a succession of spots 

 on the outer web, lengthening basally into irregular transverse bars. These black areas, 

 when well developed, are glossed with purplish-green. The remaining rectrices may be 

 evenly mottled, or may show black spots or bars of similar character. 



Face scantily clothed with pale brown ; chin and throat with whitish feathers ; upper 

 breast mottled black and rufous-brown, with broad buff shaft-stripes. These increase in 

 area and become white on the lower breast. The remaining under plumage is dominately 

 white, with a fringe and a wide cross-bar of black, the latter margined basally with buff. 

 Under tail-coverts like tail. Comb, wattles and spurs rudimentary. 



Upper mandible brownish-black, yellowish toward the tip; under mandible chiefly 

 yellow ; iris lemon yellow ; face, comb and wattles purplish-red ; legs and feet pinkish to 

 waxy or brownish yellow. Weight li to if lbs. 



Bill from nostril 15 mm. ; length, 400 to 450 ; wing, 190 ; tail, 125 ; tarsus, 65 ; middle 

 toe and claw, 53 mm. 



VARIATION 



Hardly any two hens are alike in coloration, and besides this, a bird in well-worn 

 plumage presents a very different appearance from one which has recently completed its 

 moult. The rufous and buff in the plumage change by wear and abrasion to greyish 

 white, this alteration being particularly noticeable in the wing-bars. These areas of 

 lighter pigmentation seem to offer much less resistance to wear and tear, and at the end 

 of the season the light bars in the wing will have lost almost all their barbules and 

 appear quite white, while the intervening areas of black show but little destruction to the 

 components of their portion of the vane. I have shot three females on successive days 

 within an area of some few hundred yards, all birds which had recently bred, which 

 exhibited in their plumage the extremes of abundance and absence of black patches in 

 the tail feathers, and with mantle feathers of very different shades and patterns. 



Chick in Down. — Triangular crown patch narrowly margined with black, chestnut, 

 extending down the neck and spreading over the upper plumage. A wide black line 

 begins in front of and above the eye and extends back as a superciliary across the 

 ear-coverts and on until it joins the nuchal black. Remainder of the top of the head 

 buff, becoming whiter on the face and pure white on the chin and throat. The dark 

 upper down is bordered laterally on the back and rump by a black-margined pale buff 

 stripe ; breast tinged with reddish-brown ; remaining under parts creamy white. Upper 

 mandible black, with the tip and all of the lower mandible yellow. Legs and feet 

 yellowish. Bill from nostril, 6 mm. ; length, 90; wing, 50; tarsus, 22 ; middle toe and 

 claw, 20 mm. 



Juvenile Plumage. — This state of plumage of the young birds is singularly like 

 that of the adult female, differing chiefly in the ventral white being less pure, more mixed 

 with the browns, and the rufous tending rather to greyish or sandy. 



The down of the head and neck persists, as usual, long after the entire body is 



