106 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



Length, 505 ; wing, 214 ; tail, 165 ; bill from nostril, 14 ; tarsus, 63 ; middle toe and 

 claw, 57 mm. Weight about 2 pounds. The spurs are represented by flat nodules, 

 about 16 mm. above the hind toe. 



Juvenile Plumage. — The head and neck of a five or six weeks' bird show abundant 

 remains of orange-rufous down, while the body is clad in complete juvenile plumage. 

 Crown feathers sprouting, black, with conspicuous narrow, pale buff, shaft-streaks. On 

 the nape and posteriorly this pale buff area increases until it occupies the entire visible 

 portion of the feather, save for two large, lateral, rather square-cornered black ocelli. 

 The extreme of the light colour is reached on the mantle, back and median coverts. 

 Posteriorly, while the black ocelli remain strongly developed, the bufify white diminishes 

 to a narrow terminal shaft-streak, the rest of the feather being mottled rufous-buff and 

 black. 



The flights are dark brown, mottled only along the margin of the outer web with 

 pale rufous. On the longest tail-coverts the buffy-white area becomes prominent again. 

 The rectrices are narrow and pointed, pale rufous, mottled and irregularly banded 

 with black. 



The gular flap is well demarcated and but scantily covered with white down, the 

 chin and throat down being of this colour. The breast is like the mantle, with a strong 

 tinge of rufous. The rest of the lower parts are dominantly buffy white, sparsely and 

 irregularly mottled along the margin with dark brown. 



The primaries show active change. Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are feathers of the first year 

 plumage ; No. 1 three-quarters grown (66 mm. out of its sheath), No. 2 hardly a third 

 of its ultimate length (28), while No. 3 is as yet a mere papilla sheath 5 mm. long. 

 Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 are full-grown juvenile flights, awaiting their turn. The delayed 

 outer three primaries are in full active growth. A bird of this age measures : bill from 

 nostril, 10; wing, 138; tail, 91 ; tarsus, 42 ; middle toe and claw, 38 mm. 



First Year Plumage, Male. — One of the most conservatively coloured young 

 males in this plumage is one shot in Fokien in October, having just about finished 

 shedding the juvenile plumage. The head is, as a matter of course, particoloured, 

 although less so than in most individuals of this age. The head, nape and neck, with 

 their precocious colours and patterns disregarded, are feathered much as in the juvenile 

 plumage, the feathers being black with conspicuous white narrow shaft-streaks. They 

 become grizzled and vermiculated from the neck backward, and the white centre dis- 

 appears at once, giving place to a dark grey mottled area, with the two black ocelli 

 prominent as far back as the rump and the inner secondaries. The secondaries are dull 

 brown, the outer web with a number of the usual broken, triangular, pale buffy indenta- 

 tions or pseudo-bars. The primaries have only a trace of marginal mottling. The 

 central rectrices are indistinctly barred with black, buff and cream colour, the others 

 becoming successively blacker and clearer as we proceed outward. Every one of the 

 eighteen tail feathers are in full growth, the gradation being, as usual, from within 

 outward. The chin and throat are well feathered with dirty white feathers tipped with 

 buff. The breast shows irregular rufous mottling and a narrow oval shaft-streak of 

 white, which increases on the lower breast and belly until it fairly dominates the 



