106 A MONOGRAPH OF THE sPHEASANTS 
and under tail-coverts are heavily glossed with blue, and the former show slight traces 
of the white freckling. The mid-ventral plumage is mostly dull blackish. 
Irides hazel-brown; facial skin vermilion; nape wattle is sometimes fairly well 
developed, and in a breeding male the facial shield of skin stands up ridge-like above 
the crown feathers; mandibles pale horn, blackish toward base; legs and feet bluish 
grey. The single pair of spurs are long, stout and curved, and average 25 mm. in 
length. Measurements are, bill from nostril, 17; wing, 245; tail, 162; tarsus, 79; 
middle toe and claw, 51 mm. 
VARIATIONS OF PLUMAGE 
ApuLT Mare.—About fifty per cent. of adult erythvophthalmus males have the 
shafts of the ventral plumage, especially on the breast, conspicuously white, thus 
approximating the very specialized corresponding feathers of the Bornean pyvonotus. 
As regards the status of comus inornatus. In 1879 Salvadori described a bird 
from Mount Singalan, on the west coast of Sumatra, as a new species of Crestless 
Fireback. Since then a second similar specimen has been obtained. Both are said 
on good evidence to be males, and yet curiously enough are almost identical in colour 
with the females of the two other species of 4comus, the chief point of distinction 
being the scaly appearance of the dorsal surface, owing to the steel-blue colour being 
confined chiefly to the distal fringe of the feathers. 
Upon examination of many scores of specimens of evythrophthalmus collected by 
myself and in various museums, I find so much variation to exist that I cannot bring 
myself to accept zzorvafus even as a sub-species. Both Johore and Sumatran specimens 
show all gradations between complete gloss and a narrow terminal fringe, and as to 
the freckling and iridescent back and rump I have two black-tailed males trapped in 
the same line of nooses in north Johore with four perfectly normal males, which show 
only the barest trace of white, while the dorsal colour is absent from one and extremely 
imperfect in the other. ‘In fact, when skinning the first I sexed the bird merely as 
a matter of habit and was most surprised to find that the individual was a male, with 
full-developed generative organs, and yet in the plumage of a female. I can offer as 
explanation only that this most interesting phenomenon is doubtless correlated with 
the very unusual approximation of colour in the sexes of this genus, a character so 
unlike their nearest relatives—the crested firebacks (Lopiura). The close association 
of the two phases, and their occurrence in both the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra 
would seem to indicate that its occurrence is no more than a variation such as the 
so-called Lophophorus chambanus in a wild state, or Chrysolophus obscurus or Pavo 
nigripennis in captive birds. 
ApuLT FrmMaLe.—Forehead, crown and occiput dark brown, chin, throat and 
ear-coverts paler, smoky grey. Upper plumage black, strongly glossed with steel-blue 
on the exposed portions of the feathers. The gloss dies out on the secondaries and 
tail-feathers, which are black, the primaries being brown. The under-parts show very 
little gloss, this being confined to the breast, sides and under tail-coverts, the remainder 
being dull, brownish black. Many females show a small round white spot or mottled 
patch on the feathers of the crown and side of the nape. Correlated with the other 
