MALAY PEACOCK PHEASANT 83 



middle toe and claw, 50 mm. Spurs usually two on each leg, sometimes three on one 

 or both ; stout and not very long, seldom over 13 mm. 



Adult Female. — Of a decidedly more buffy hue than Polypledron b. bicakaratum, 

 otherwise very similar. 



Head and neck uniform dark brownish black, with paler centres to the feathers. 

 Chin and throat dirty white. Upper mantle and under-parts vermiculated and banded 

 with dark brown. Lower mantle and wings olive buff, vermiculated with dark brown 

 and with irregular, rather pointed, black ocelli. Above this is a small irregular shaft- 

 spot of clear buff. The ocelli die out gradually on the secondaries, which are vermicu- 

 lated with buff on the outer webs and finally only on the outer margins, while the 

 primaries are plain brown. Back and rump, like wings, lacking ocelli or with only 

 the vaguest traces. Ocelli much more highly developed on the longer tail-coverts and 

 rectrices, the lateral rectrices with only the outer ocellus as in the male. 



Fleshy colours as in the male. Length, 430 mm. ; bill from nostril, 11 ; wing, 190 ; 

 tail, 160; tarsus, 58; middle toe and claw, 45 mm. Spurs represented by a low, 

 rounded scalule. 



First Year Plumage Male. — A series of birds of this age shows great variation 

 in the general relation to the adult plumage, partly due to a large number of new 

 adventitious feathers replacing others torn out, in part to actual intra-feather variation 

 due to the more retarded or advanced condition of the pigment in the blood at the time 

 of the post-juvenile moult. 



A male shot in May has not yet shed all the juvenile plumage. In this specimen 

 the juvenile plumage on the top of the head and neck is pale warm brown, the crown 

 feathers hardly longer than the others. Chin, breast and under-parts a colder dark 

 brown, vermiculated with greyish buff. Some of the inner secondaries and coverts are 

 juvenile, and strongly tinged with rufous. Ocelli on the lower mantle and wings, 

 irregular spots of black, the rest of the feather predominately light buff, mottled and 

 vermiculated with dark brown. A slight gloss appears on some of the larger ocelli. 

 Lower back and rump same as the wings, but without ocelli, many of the feathers 

 having instead a black-bordered, sub-terminal spot of solid buff. The tail-feathers, 

 twenty-two in number, are juvenile, narrow, pointed and curved, with no hint of ocelli. 

 They are brownish black, strongly barred with seven to thirteen buff cross-bands. 



In more advanced post-juvenal males the head is darker, the ocelli are more perfect, 

 the general plumage more spotted and the relative length of the tail greater in proportion 

 as the plumage is more adult. The ocelli on the longer tail-coverts and rectrices are 

 fairly well developed, the arrangement being exactly as in the adult. Faint buff 

 markings on these feathers are in the form of irregular cross-bars. The spurs are 

 quite well developed. 



SYNONYMY 



Le petit Paon de Malacca Sonn. Voy. Ind. Orient. IL 1782, p. 173, pi. XCIX. 



Phasianus malaccensis Scop., Del. Flor. et Faun. Insubr. 1786, pt. IL p. 93. 



Polyplectron chinquis Temminck (nee Miill.), Pig. et Gall. IL 1813, p. 363, III. 1815, p. 675 [part]. 



Pavo bicalcaratus Raffles, Tr. Linn, Soc. XIII. 1822, p. 319 [Sumatra]. 



