84 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



upper tail-coverts. The flight feathers are all banded on the outer web with warm 

 buff, and the rectrices are crossed by warm, mottled bands of black, pale buff 

 and rufous. 



The breast is like the mantle, becoming paler posteriorly, but showing little or no 

 development of central white until the mid-belly is reached, where it is clouded and 

 rather ill defined, surrounded by a confused vermiculation of pale buff and brown. The 

 white centre or ocellus is very strongly developed on the under tail-coverts, where, 

 upon a dark background of mottled yellow buff and black, it stands out as a clear 

 oval, subterminal ocellus of white. Iris brown ; legs and feet brownish flesh. The 

 measurements of an adult female are: bill from nostril, 16 ; wing, 233; tail, 172; 

 tarsus, 71; middle toe and claw, 66 mm. 



First Year Plumage, Male. — The young males at their first autumn moult 

 show as great variation as any of the other species of this genus, and it was a very 

 typical individual in this mixed garb which, after an error in sexing, was described and 

 figured as the female of this species. In addition to the head and neck, the longer 

 upper tail-coverts seem almost invariably to acquire about half of the fully adult colour 

 and pattern at this moult. I have never seen more than one or two clean, evenly 

 coloured birds in first year plumage. In these rare individuals the resemblance to the 

 female is considerably closer than in other tragopans. The crown, nape, mantle and 

 breast, however, are banded with equal amounts of black and buff. The chin and 

 throat are white. The upper parts show an evenly grizzled vermiculation of pale buff 

 and black, with conspicuous lateral black ocelli, which, however, lack the buff frame 

 in which they are set on the female's plumage. The rather cloudy, but large white 

 centres or ocelli of the ventral plumage are bordered by dull brown, and framed in 

 pale yellowish buff. 



In the place of such a well-balanced plumage, however, we almost invariably find 

 the head and neck well advanced, showing more or less clearly the black and crimson 

 markings of the old birds. Although the crimson of the upper throat is almost always 

 present in a state of more or less purity, the chin and throat usually retain their white 

 feathering, and show little thinning on the gular lappet until the succeeding moult. 

 Variously scattered over the back are the twin chestnut ocelli, while here and there 

 the pearly spots appear on the breast. Birds of this age, compared with individual 

 Temminck's tragopans equally immature, reveal strikingly how little real difference 

 exists between the two. At first sight they appear totally unlike in hue and pattern, 

 and yet merely the elimination of the crimson from the feather tips of temmincki results 

 in the exact patterns and colours of blythi. 



The flight feathers of these young cocks are more abundantly and irregularly 

 mottled and barred with rufous than they will be after the coming moult into adult 

 dress, and the tail feathers will lose their rather regular crossbarring of dark brown, 

 rufous and buff, and become more uniformly black. 



Not only in colour and in pattern do the feathers of this moult vary exceedingly, but 

 in size. For example : of two young males, one, with a more rufous barred tail, showed 

 the measurement of this organ to be 163; while in another the tail, which was less 

 marked, and blacker in general tone, was 178 mm. long. Thus nicely balanced are all 



