52 GAME BIRDS OF INDIA AND ASIA. 



both sexes, which also have in common a bare red 

 skin round the eye. This style of head is charac- 

 teristic of some Kaleeges, as will be seen in the 

 next chapter ; and its combination with the long 

 narrow true pheasant tail makes the Cheer quite 

 unique and easily recognisable. The male Cheer 

 is larger than the female, and is spurred ; but the 

 latter has nearly as long a tail in proportion, and 

 is not much duller in colour, though different in 

 pattern : the cock Cheer being an unusually dull 

 bird for a pheasant. 



His general colour is a buffy white, closely 

 barred with black above and sparingly mottled 

 with that colour below ; his head is drab, and the 

 front and sides of his neck plain dirty white ; the 

 lower part of his back is warm buff barred with 

 steely black, and his tail is really handsome, being 

 rich buff, barred with broad bands of mixed chest- 

 nut and black. The middle of the belly is black, 

 and the flanks rusty yellow. 



The bill is pale grey-brown, and the feet drab. 



In length the cock measures about a yard, and 

 although nearly two-thirds of this is tail, he is yet 

 really a considerably bigger bird than the English 

 pheasant ; having a ten-inch wing, the shank nearly 

 three inches, and the bill about half that. 



The hen has the same dark cap a.nd white throat, 

 the former rather obscured by light edges to the 

 feathers ; but the neck and breast are black with 

 pale edges, and the general body colour darker 

 than in the cock, and rather mottled than barred, 

 with longitudinal streaks of buff ; the tail is also 

 irregularly mottled and barred with brown, black, 



