GAME BIRDS OF INDIA AND ASIA. 4I 



■brown, closdy mottled with buff, the breast being 

 of a plain bay ; the bare head is blue, and the legs 

 red ; the cock has no spurs. 



As above noted, he differs from the hen in his 

 enormous secondary quills and central tail feathers, 

 the latter being curiously twisted at the end. The 

 male Argus's wing-quUls, also, both primary and 

 secondary, bear the elaborate decoration which 

 makes him one of the most wonderful birds in 

 the world, but none of this is visible in the ordinary 

 attitude of repose. The primary quills have a 

 ■dark blue shaft, and a band of chestnut, finely 

 dotted with white alongside it on the inner web of 

 the feather ; the secondaries have along the shafts 

 of their outer webs a row of most beautiful eye 

 spots, or "ocelli," shaded with ochre, drab, and 

 ■white, so beautifully as to resemble balls lying 

 in sockets, the ' ' lights ' ' being most artistically 

 rendered. As Darwin has shown, on the plumage 

 of this bird a complete gradation can be traced 

 ivotn these wonderful markings to ordinary spots. 

 Another peculiarity of the male, concealed in 

 repose, is that the lower part of the back is buff 

 "with black spots. 



The male is altogether larger than the female, 

 and his extravagant developments of plumage 

 make him seem even bigger than he is. He is 

 about six feet long, with a tail of over four feet ; 

 "the wing to the end of the great secondaries is 

 nearly a yard long, but the primaries are only 

 about a foot and a half ; the shank is four, and a 

 half inches long, and the bill rather more than 

 one and a half. In the hen the length is about 

 two and a half feet ; the wing a foot, and the tail 

 an inch more ; the shank is about an inch shorter 



