I50 , A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



The alula or thumb feathers are dark slaty grey, with large black spots, round or 

 kidney-shaped, framed in chestnut, and more abundant on the outer than on the inner 

 webs. The inner web near the shaft is stained with a ferruginous sulphur yellow, 

 hinting of the magnificent ocelli on the secondaries. The greater primary coverts are 

 somewhat similar, but with a paler grey ground, becoming white on the innermost of 

 this series, which colour is reduced to a network by the increased size and tendency 

 to coalesce of the black and chestnut ocelli. 



The general pattern of the primaries is like the above, except that the grey is 

 replaced on the outer webs of the inner feathers by a gradual change to fawn or vinaceous 

 buff, and finally, at least on the outer web, to yellowish-white. The basal part of the 

 shaft is orange on its dorsal aspect, changing abruptly to bright blue throughout 

 the greater part of the feather. For much of the length of the web, a series of short 

 black lines extends at right angles from the shaft into each web, the interspaces on the 

 inner web being olive, marked with bright orange yellow, this colour forming a solid 

 line where the black lines die out on the distal part of the feather. In the centre of the 

 inner web is a broad band of bright chestnut, finely dotted with tiny, distinct specks of 

 white. The rest of the feather is dotted, like the alula and coverts with chestnut-framed 

 black spots, becoming fewer in number, but larger, toward the tip. 



The secondaries are the supreme decoration of this most wonderful of pheasants, 

 and their chief beauty lies in the line of ocelli close to the shaft on the outer web. In 

 the longest secondary there may be more than twenty-five of these ocelli, the largest 

 25 mm. in diameter. They are rather retort-shaped than round, framed in jet-black, 

 which in turn is sharply set off by the pale buff background of the feather. The pupil 

 of the eye shows a surface of gently shading pigments. Starting at the side toward 

 the base of the feather, a zone of deep lustrous wine-colour or chestnut shades into 

 olive green externally, this changing into yellow toward the shaft. Then comes 

 a shaded patch of white shading to grey, like the reflection of light in a real eye. 

 This in its turn, at the distal side of the ocellus, is replaced rather abruptly by 

 vinaceous. 



The side of each ocellus touches the shaft, and they are separated from one another 

 by an irregular dotting of black on the pale buff. The remainder of the web outside the 

 ocelli is pale vinaceous buff, across which extend broad, acutely oblique, black lines, one 

 starting from each ocellus, and before reaching the margin of the web, breaking up into 

 closely set, round dots of equal width with the line. A narrow streak of chestnut 

 extends down the centre of some of the lines. The inner webs of the secondaries are 

 slaty grey near the shaft, paling to pure white, and covered in both areas with a 

 multitude of round black dots, set in a pale narrow frame. The tip of each feather 

 shows a zone of white dots, decreasing to the vanishing point at the extremity, and 

 encircled by a more or less dominant network of dull chestnut. On the scapulars and 

 tertiaries the first hints of the ocelli are visible in the form of chestnut marks in the 

 centre of the black dots, this red changing to orange and yellow, and by its increase, 

 splitting and inflating the black spot into an encircling ring. 



The longest upper tail-coverts are white, thickly set with rows of crescent-shaped 

 black spots, with chestnut centres, many of the spots coalescing more or less intimately. 

 The tail-feathers are twelve in number and the central pair are enormously elongated. 



