GAME BIRDS OF INDIA AND ASIA. 75 



the quills of the wing and tail the marking becomes 

 a rather irregular pencilling, and on the inner webs 

 and tips of the middle tail-feathers the black pen- 

 cilling dies away altogether. 



The hen is plain brown almost throughout,, 

 including the side tail-feathers, but is marked on 

 the breast with V-shaped white streaks. 



The cock is two and-a-half to three feet long, 

 of which more than half is tail. The wing measures 

 about ten inches. 



This is one of the doubtful species to which I 

 alluded above, as are also those which follow. 

 Only a few specimens have been obtained, and 

 these appear to differ Considerably. The type of 

 the species, however, obtained by the late Dr. 

 Anderson in the Kachin Hills, closely agrees with 

 birds from the Ruby Mines in Burma and v^ith. 

 others obtained by French naturalists from Annam. 

 I was able to observe the last in Paris some years 

 ago, and there saw the hen. Dr. Anderson's bird, 

 which was in my time still in the Indian Museum, had 

 flesh-coloured legs, but the others I have seen had 

 red ones like the Chinese Silver Pheasant. Several 

 skins collected by Captain W. G. Nisbett in the- 

 Kachin Hills, north of Bhamo and east of Myit- 

 kyina, show the most remarkable gradations 

 between this species and the Purple or Black- 

 breasted Kaleege (GenncBus horsfieldi), and the two 

 species evidentl}?^ interbreed there, the Purple 

 Kaleege strain predominating on the lower ground 

 and the .Silver Pheasant on the higher. One such 

 hybrid, with the white pencilling on the upper 

 surface less strong than in the true andersoni and. 

 showing white rump-bars, has been called Genncsus- 



