BLAGK-BACKED KALEEGE Al 
shaft, and with the framing of reddish, presents a decidedly occellated appearance. 
On all the wing-coverts the black becomes very broad, distinct and unbroken, and 
the feather is terminated by an almost equally wide and very conspicuous band of 
pale creamy buff. 
The secondaries are uniformly vermiculated with reddish brown and black on 
the exposed parts of the webs, while the primaries have only a very narrow edging 
of the buff markings. The lower back and rump are almost unmarked. The central 
pair of tail-feathers are mottled and vermiculated equally with black and a richer 
chestnut than is found elsewhere on the plumage. ‘The lateral rectrices are irregularly 
and sparingly mottled with reddish brown. 
In a female a week younger than the juvenile male described, the pale facial 
down is still present, so the reddish colour of the facial skin of the female at this 
age is not so apparent as in the other individual. The chin and throat are pure 
white, the ear-coverts and throat band grey. The lower plumage of buffy brown, 
indistinctly and faintly mottled with darker, begins abruptly at the grey of the neck, 
paling to a buffy white on the belly and abdomen, and becoming an indefinite dark 
brown on the sides and flanks. Fleshy tints as in male. 
Bill from nostril, 11 mm.; length, 300; wing, 150; tail, 110; tarsus, 40; middle 
toe and claw, 35. 
Blyth’s type of a quarter-grown female, in the Indian Museum, shows almost as 
extreme fading as does the adult female type, being of a pale reddish brown, paler 
even than any fresh individual albocristatus which I have seen. 
First YEAR PLumMAGE.—In the male of melanonotus, as in the other kaleege, 
the bird may or may not bear traces of its immaturity throughout its first year of 
life, in the form of greyish vermiculations on the coverts, secondaries and central 
tail-feathers. In the juvenile plumage there is no hint of the ultimate lanceolate 
form of the breast feathers, and the incoming plumage, if acquired early, is pre- 
dominately dark, and not nearly so narrow and tapering as the succeeding plumage 
of the second annual moult will be. 
EARLY HISTORY 
In the ‘General History of Birds,” Dr. John Latham in 1822 described a bird, 
calling it the Chittygong pheasant. His summary of knowledge of the bird occupied 
two lines: ‘“Inhabits India; is a native of the Chittygong Hills, and known by the 
name of Muthurau.” Gray in 1829 calls the bird Phaszanus muthura, while in his 
“Genera of Birds” Gray gives the genus as Gallophasis. It is doubtful whether this 
species is indicated, especially as it was said to be ‘the size of a turkey.” So the name 
melanotus, given by Blyth in 1848 to what was undoubtedly this form, is usually 
accepted as the earliest authentic name. It was 1857 before the first living specimens 
were received at the London Zoo." 
SYNONYMY 
? Chittygong Pheasant Latham, Gen. Hist. VIII. 1823, p. 200. 
? Phasianus muthura Gray, in Griff. ed. Cuv. III. 1829, p. 27. 
? Gallophasis muthura Gray, Gen. B, III. 1845, p. 498. 
VOL. II G 
