BLUE EARED-PHEASANT 183 



difference in character of the country, they live their lives in much the same way in 

 the little-known Kansu hinterland of China. 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — Top of the head covered with short, black, recurved, velvety 

 feathers ; lores and sides of forehead, chin, throat and greatly elongated ear-coverts 

 white. Entire upper and under plumage bluish-grey, most of the webs being dis- 

 integrated, loose and hairy. The first rows of true contour feathers on the occiput 

 back of the velvety crown are white, forming a narrow transverse band of this colour, 

 extending from ear-covert to ear-covert. 



Secondaries dark brown, quite strongly glossed with purple. Primaries, paler dull 

 brown, unglossed. 



Tail typically with twenty-four feathers, the two central pairs bluish-grey with the 

 webs wholly disintegrated up to the very shaft. The barbs are very long, curved and 

 hair-like. Toward the extremity they become darker, and strongly glossed with metallic 

 green, changing at the tip into purple, there being at this place a small spatulate area 

 of firm webbing, strongly curved downward. The next few pairs of rectrices are more 

 firmly webbed, the outer web strongly iridescent greenish and the inner violet-purple. 

 The outer five or six pairs of tail-feathers show a variable amount of basal white, in 

 typical specimens three-quarters of the basal area being of this colour, the distal portion 

 of the feathers being metallic purple. 



The variation in white in this Eared-pheasant I shall discuss in detail under the 

 general heading of hybrids. 



Bare facial skin, scarlet ; irides, yellowish ; mandibles, reddish horn ; legs and toes, 

 scarlet ; spurs, paler ; claws, dark horn. Length, 960 ; bill from nostril, 30 ; wing, 306 ; 

 tail, 560 ; tarsus, 101 ; middle toe and claw, 80 mm. Spurs, short, stout, conical, 7 to 

 12 mm in length. 



Adult Female. — Resembles the male, but with the spurs rudimentary, and is 

 somewhat smaller in size. Bill from nostril, 28; wing, 290 ; tail, 490; tarsus, 94 ; middle 

 toe and claw, 71 mm. 



Immature Male. — This bird, which was collected in August, is about completing 

 the moult from the juvenile into the adult plumage. Juvenile crown feathers short, 

 dull brown but not recurved, except on the forehead. Upper neck similar to crown, 

 but there is a faint whitish ring around the nape from ear to ear. New dorsal plumage 

 fully adult, bluish grey with much decomposed webs. The few remaining juvenile 

 feathers show none of this disintegration and are dull brown, indefinitely mottled with 

 dull rufous buff. The remaining juvenile coverts show a pale white terminal shaft- 

 streak and a broad terminal band of black. 



Chin, throat and ear-coverts white as in adults. Ventral plumage shows a few 

 remaining dull-brown, juvenile feathers, each with a large terminal spot of pale buff. 



The wings are in a most active state of change. The delayed juvenile 9th and 10th 

 primaries are still growing, not having reached their full length, the inner five are 



