CABOT'S TRAGOPAN 105 



lated pattern, a connected network of roundish orange masses enclosing separated spots 

 of purple. Radiating out on each side to the periphery of the shield are fingers or bands 

 of pale blue, darker near the neck and paling to a cerulean blue tinged with green. 

 There are nine of these bands on each side, with wider interspaces of buffy grey. They 

 are connected at their base by a wide longitudinal band of blue, and along the margin 

 most of them touch and merge with a narrow band of the same colour. 



The lappet is 150 mm. (six inches) long and half as wide. A few elongated, hair- 

 like feathers are scattered about, one in the centre of each purple interspace in the 

 central orange area. The lappet is distinctly bilobed at the end. 



Iris hazel brown; feet and legs pinkish-red. Length, 610; bill from nostril, 15; 

 wing, 235 ; tail, 213 ; tarsus, 71 ; middle toe and claw, 65 mm. Average length of spurs, 

 10; height above hind toe, 21 mm. Two fully adult male birds in my possession each 

 possess a spur on only one leg, the right in one case and the left in the other, the 

 missing spur being represented by a flat nodule similar to that of the hen. 



Adult Female. — Forehead and crown black with a broad pale buff shaft-stripe 

 and tipped with chestnut, this colour being strongest on the feathers of the occiput. 

 Even on the crown feathers some individuals show spots, or other markings of buff, 

 half way to the base, already hinting at the delimitation of the terminal black ocelli. 

 On the nape and neck these markings become more abundant, and the mantle feathers 

 show the ocelli clear and distinct. We find these on almost all the dorsal feathers, but 

 of less conspicuous character than the white streaking. This is especially true of the 

 mantle, back and wing-coverts, on which a central white area is well developed, very 

 pure and conspicuous, usually narrow and streak-like, but occasionally wider and 

 pointed. The general tone of the upper plumage is dark brown, grizzled with buffy- 

 grey in some individuals, while others are of a much warmer, more rufous tone. The 

 secondaries are black, with a series of very regular, triangular, buffy indentations on the 

 outer web broken by mottling, but simulating six or more crossbars in the closed wing. 

 The primaries are dark brown with very slight buffy mottling on the outer margins. 

 The rectrices vary in general tone with the individual, but always show transverse 

 mottled bars of rufous, pale buff and black. 



The feathers of the face, chin and throat are either white with black margins, or of 

 a creamy whitoue tlined in pale buff. The under parts in correspondingly variable 

 individuals may present a cold grey tone or be suffused with a warm buffy hue. The 

 dominant character, however, is the very large, conspicuous, white central spots, which 

 extend from the upper breast to the largest under tail-coverts, and, in the aggregate, 

 equal or exceed the marginal mottlings. The striped throat gives way at once to grey 

 or buff mottled feathers, presenting the central white area and the lateral black ocelli 

 well developed, and the change posteriorly is chiefly in the increase in size of the white. 



The upper mandible is pinkish horn colour, with the tip and the lower mandible 

 lighter; the iris hazel-brown; the eyelids and cheeks reddish-orange and, what has 

 escaped the attention of all observers, the entire chin and throat, as far back as a line 

 drawn between the quadrates, is even brighter orange, the skin being much wrinkled 

 and creased, corresponding to the lappet of the male Tragopan. The legs, toes and 

 claws are dark pinkish horn colour, the latter paler at the tip. 



