244 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



and enamel-like, framed in black, with the base of the feather white. As we proceed 

 backward over the neck, the feathers gain in complexity. The longest hackles are well 

 over I GO mm. in length, and strung along the centre of the vane they show as many as 

 four distinct, specialized, enamel-like patches. This is in no sense an enlargement of 

 the rhachis or shaft, but a solidification or cornification of the vane as a whole. The 

 barbs all run into this area, and distally emerge from it, unchanged as to their position 

 in the vane as a whole. The sealing-wax simile is a perfect one. If one took any 

 normal feather and dropped four beads of sealing-wax at intervals along the shaft, 

 allowing them to spread over about half the width of the vane, the hackle spots would 

 be perfectly imitated. The terminal waxy spot soon becomes frayed and split, and when 

 the wear and tear thus becornes apparent, it presents the appearance of the margin of a 

 palm frond. 



The hackles have a wide, disintegrated fringe of grey, the remainder of the feather 

 being dark-brown or black. The concealed spots are always pure white, but the 

 terminal wax may be either white or tinged with pigment until it is of a deep yellow 

 ochre. The free unmodified part of the vane may be grey-fringed to the tip, or it, too, 

 may be heavily stained with yellow. The extremes of these two colours are birds very 

 unlike in appearance, but the variation is dependent neither upon age nor locality. There 

 is sometimes a hint of a proximal fifth area of specialization, and often this is so rudi- 

 mentary that the modification has affected pigment only, the node being white, but 

 wholly normal in structure. The dark portions of most of the longer hackles are 

 strongly glossed with violet and purple. 



The hackles, besides extending backward over the whole mantle plumage, are 

 continued around the sides of the bare neck until they almost meet in front on the 

 lower neck. 



On the lower hind neck the hackles give place abruptly to the normal plumage of 

 the mantle. These and the majority of the body feathers and the lesser wing-coverts are 

 dark-brown or black — dull in some individuals, in others glossed with purple — narrowly 

 edged with grey, and with still narrower white shaft-stripes. There is sometimes con- 

 siderable grey mottling in the dark area, regardless of age, but usually this is lost in the 

 fully adult bird. 



The purple gloss is accentuated on the rump feathers, and in addition a series of the 

 small, wax-like ornaments appears, and the visible fringe is deep orange-red. The 

 shorter upper tail-coverts are bronze-purple, the longer ones purplish-blue, with a 

 marginal band of greenish. The tail-feathers are black glossed with bluish-green, on 

 both webs in the central, on the outer web alone of the lateral rectrices. 



On the median wing-coverts occurs another extremely specialized zone ; if anything 

 even more extreme than that of the hackles. The enamelled area is so extensive that in 

 full-plumaged birds it forms a broad, solid zone across the wing. The proximal part is 

 formed by feathers which have but the merest tip of waxy structure, while in the 

 posterior part of this wing area the feathers are solidly cornified for some 30 mm. of 

 their length, the entire distal part of the vane being thus affected, and the colour being 

 a rich ochre. Where any part of the visible portion of the vane is free, it is orange-red. 

 The greater primary coverts are dull, dark-brown, while those protecting the secondaries 

 are glossed with purple, with only a white shaft-mark to hint of the specialization in the 



