BLACK-BREASTED KALEEGE 51 
the secondaries and tail-feathers black, glossed with blue only along the visible margins. 
The bill is usually greenish horn colour, paler toward the tip and darker basally; facial 
skin scarlet ; irides brownish hazel ; legs and feet variable, sometimes leaden blue, again 
light horn colour, brown or fleshy. Length about 580 mm. ; bill from nostril 18; wing 
221; tail 230; tarsus 75; middle toe and claw 60; spurs about 22 mm. The tail is the 
most variable of all these measurements, averaging longer in eastern birds. Weight 
from 2% to 34 lbs. 
ApvuL_tT Femare.—As the females of albocristatus are paler of hue, and those of 
melanonotus more melanistic, so the females of Zorsfeldi tend toward erythryism, being 
on the whole more rufescent than the others, but great variation exists between fully 
adult birds shot in the same district. 
In general the colour is a rich olive-brown ; tip of the crest rich rufescent ; sides of 
the head and neck greyish toward the tips; chin and throat whitish; body and wings 
decidedly rufescent ; wing-coverts and ventral plumage tipped with paler colour, some- 
times very conspicuously ; ventral surface with brownish-white shaft-streaks ; rump and 
upper tail-coverts paler olive brown; centre tail-feathers and often the longest tail- 
coverts deep ferrugineous, unmarked, or finely vermiculated with dusky. Primaries 
brown, darker on inner webs, tinged with olive on the outer webs; secondaries and 
tertiaries much more rufescent, either plain or finely speckled with paler toward the tips. 
Facial skin crimson; irides hazel; bill greenish, darker at base; legs and feet 
variable as in the male. Length, 530 mm.; bill from nostril, 18; wing, 210; tail, 210. 
tarsus, 72; middle toe and claw, 55 mm. 
YounG Matrr.—Much like the female, sometimes indistinguishable, sometimes 
darker. The succeeding moults gradually eliminate the brown and replace it with 
black pigment, and a bird of the second year may be fully adult in appearance or 
with every feather stained with immaturity. 
EARLY HISTORY 
Latham introduces us to this kaleege in 1823, under the name of the Sylhet 
Pheasant. His only remarks are, ‘‘ Inhabits India, brought from Sylhet, in the Province 
of Bengal, by Sir J. Anstruther.” Gray, six years later, repeated the description and 
gave to the bird the name of /athami. As his description is not exact, he doubtless 
had in his possession one of the wild hybrids. G. R. Gray named it Gallophasis 
horsfieldi in 1845, and gave an excellent plate of the cock. The first live birds were 
placed on exhibition twelve years later. 
SYNONYMY 
Sylhet Pheasant Latham, Gen. Hist. VIII. 1823, p. 208. 
?Phasianus lathami Gray in Griff. ed. Cuv., III. 1829, p. 26, 
Gallophasis horsfieldi Gray, Gen. Birds, III. 1845, p. 498, pl. CXXVI; Mitchell, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 
1858, p. 544, pl. 148, fig. 2, pl. 149, fig. 1; Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1859, p. 205 [24 days incubation] ; 
Sclater and Wolf, Zool. Sket. 2, 1861, pl. 39. 
Euplocomus horsfieldi Blyth, Cat. Mus. As. Soc., 1849, p. 244; Hume, Stray Feathers, VII. 1878, p. 429. 
