JAVAN JUNGLEFOWL 263 



suddenly becomes a brilliant purplish-blue. The convex band itself is a rich, glowing, 

 greenish bronze, the feather terminating in a very narrow fringe of black. These colours 

 are wholly absent from the under surface, and, of course, from their character, disappear 

 when viewed by transmitted light. 



On the mid-mantle the purplish-blue becomes so extreme that it replaces the 

 proximal black in the visible portion of the feathers. The lower mantle changes rather 

 abruptly, the feathers losing their truncate character and becoming rather obtusely 

 pointed. Simultaneously the curved ridge becomes obsolete and the black fringe 

 increases. The purplish-blue disappears and the whole of the visible feather is 

 uniformly golden green. Just basal to the black fringe the vane is sometimes tinged 

 with bronze. The lower back and rump form another abrupt colour area, with almost 

 no transition pterylum. The feathers are narrow and greatly elongated, finger-like, with 

 rounded ends, and in colour dead black, with a conspicuous fringe all around of golden 

 yellow. The shorter upper tail-coverts are similar, but with a large central area of bluish 

 green. In the longer feathers of this series the fringe becomes obsolete and the green 

 gloss dominates the whole feather. The lesser and median wing-coverts are much like 

 the back feathers in shape, hackle-like, but the disintegrated fringe is longer and of 

 a rich, deep, reddish orange. On the inner greater coverts this pales to the golden 

 yellow of the back hackles. Greater coverts and secondaries black, more or less glossed 

 with bluish green. Primaries dull blackish brown. Tail-feathers black, glossed with 

 greenish blue, especially on the outer webs. Entire under parts dead black; under 

 tail-coverts slightly fringed with yellowish buff. 



This Junglefowl has the long, curved, central tail-feathers, but lacks the elongated 

 flowing neck hackles of the other species. Its most striking secondary sexual character 

 is the pigmentation of the comb and wattle. The former is very large, with the upper 

 margin entire, and no traces of the deep notches of the other species. That is, the usual 

 comb is thus entire, but perhaps ten per cent, of the cocks show very faint serrations on 

 the posterior half. In one wild shot bird, for instance, I found, on close examination, 

 five well-marked teeth, one of which was double-notched, all near the posterior upper 

 angle. In three females I have observed minute serrations along the summit of the 

 rudimentary comb. The size of the comb often results in its leaning far over to one side, 

 especially at other than the breeding season. The central basal part is greenish or 

 greenish blue, this colour changing abruptly into a violet red, which extends over the 

 whole remaining four-fifths of the comb. In some individuals this is almost clear deep 

 red ; again the violet, peach-bloom sheen may cover almost all of it. The rim is usually 

 pure blood red. The lower eyelid is dull violet in the centre, changing into pale yellow 

 around the edge. When the eye is open this colouring is invisible, but when drawn up 

 over the eye, the lid stands out clearly against the facial red. 



The whole unfeathered part of the crown, lores, the face to the edge of the feathering 

 all around, including the small, sub-auricular wattles, chin, throat and anterior two-thirds 

 of the median, throat wattle, deep blood red. The wattle begins well up between the 

 lower mandibular rami and extends far down on the neck, hanging downward as a large 

 median fold of skin. In fully adult birds at the breeding season this may be two and a 

 half inches in length. The free ends of the feathers of the neck, truncated though they 

 are, reach cape-like over the bare throat, and when the head of the bird is drawn down 



