JAVAN JUNGLE FOWL 265 



Chick in Down. — Upper parts from crown to tail, and the wing down, dark 

 chocolate-brown ; head, side neck and breast, brownish ; line from lores through eye and 

 ear-coverts back to the nape chocolate or black. A creamy buff line on either side of the 

 dorsal brown along the sides and rump, bounded outside by a black line. Under parts 

 creamy white. Iris pale hazel. Bill, legs and feet pinkish white or light horn colour. 



The difficulties under which one has to work in the study of such an important 

 member of the Javan fauna as the Junglefowl, even in its native land, is well shown by 

 the specimens in the Buitenzorg Museum. There were six males all told, very badly 

 mounted, two adult birds, one nearly so, and three immature cocks. No females, chicks, 

 or birds in juvenile plumage. Of the three young birds of equal age, one had yellow 

 glass eyes, another jet-black beads, and the third rich hazel irides. The combs were 

 enclosed or replaced with thin wooden pointed sheaths. If such diversity, due to lack 

 of definite observation, exists here in the very haunts of this insular species, we, thirteen 

 thousand miles away, can readily understand the total lack of accurate details up to the 

 present time. 



Juvenile Plumage. — The sexes in this plumage are almost indistinguishable, 

 judging from the small series I was able to collect. The cocks are more heavily pig- 

 mented with black, the general type of pattern and colouring being, however, much like 

 the adult female. The feathering on the face is already scanty, and, together with the 

 chin and throat, is pure white. The feathers of the top of the head, neck, and upper 

 mantle are all normally rounded in shape, and in colour predominantly black, with a 

 rufous-buff fringe and a narrow shaft-stripe. On the lower mantle, back, and rump this 

 shaft-stripe widens and becomes a conspicuous buffy-white. 



The lesser coverts are like the upper mantle, and the median like the back with the 

 addition of a broad, transverse band and wide tip of buff or whitish. The secondaries 

 and their coverts are banded or spotted with whitish and rufous on the outer webs, as in 

 the adult female. The primaries are plain brown. The tail-feathers are dark-brown, 

 irregularly barred or edged with buff. 



The white feathers of the throat extend well down on the neck in a V-shape, 

 covering the area which in the adult is bare and occupied by the median wattle. The 

 ventral plumage is reddish-brown, mottled and spotted with black. On the flanks are 

 found faint traces of the sub-terminal concentric band which characterizes the adult 

 female. The under tail-coverts are black, with a fringe of buff. 



The iris is pale hazel, and the spurs and comb are rudimentary. The facial skin as 

 seen through the feathering is flesh colour, and the legs and feet are pinkish. 



First Annual or Post-Juvenile Moult.— In all the specimens which I have 

 seen, this moult leaves the bird in a very imperfectly adult plumage, and it is probable 

 that not until the second annual moult does the Javan Junglefowl ever come into its 

 fully adult dress. 



The typical change is as follows, although no two specimens are exactly alike, and 

 indeed this is the most variable period of the bird's life as regards its external characters. 



The brown head, neck, and mantle feathers are replaced with black ones, with a slieht 



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