120 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
Primary No. 7 may be taken as typical of the real juvenile plumage. It is dark 
brown, with faint, wholly irregular mottling of dull rufous on the outer web. 
Primary No. 8 (the third from the outer), which, as usual, was somewhat delayed 
in its appearance, has pale buff markings on both webs, in the form of bands oblique 
to the shaft, about nine altogether, wavy and mottled, but distinct. Nos. 9 and 10 
very evidently appeared synchronously and are almost identical. The pale buff, mottled 
bands persist only on the inner part of the inner webs, while in place’of the bands 
elsewhere is now a faint, diffuse cloudiness of pale blue-grey, which has spread until 
the interspaces have become reduced to roundish, dark brown spots, very regular and 
sharply delimited on the outer webs. There are six or seven on each web. 
Passing inward to the newly growing feathers, in No. 6 we find a further 
development of this pattern. The vane in general is very dark brown, entirely, evenly 
and finely flecked with minute white dots, except for the terminal 38 mm., where are 
three pairs of markings, half broken oblique bars, half marginal ocelli. 
On the succeeding inner primaries the white peppering or vermiculation is 
unbroken. 
As usual in this stage of phasianine wing-moult, the outermost secondary (No. 1) 
is still unshed, although much worn and somewhat broken. It is brown, with pale 
buff cross-bars. The next seven secondaries are new, having been shed successively 
inward, the eighth being very short. The succeeding five are unshed, showing the 
typical juvenile, buff-banded pattern. 
In a second immature male, with the wing-moult somewhat farther advanced, the 
long-delayed first or outermost secondary has been shed and the new feather is half 
grown. In colour it is adult, evenly freckled with bluish white, while the succeeding 
four secondaries all show distinct bands or ocelli on the outer webs. The sixth 
secondary is typically freckled. So the delayed outer secondary skips the pattern of 
the next four inner ones, its pattern being of the same adult type infused into the 
sixth and succeeding ones. 
The moult of the primaries in this individual must have occurred rather earlier 
than usual, before all the juvenile pigment was eliminated from the blood, for the 
innermost, or No. 1, is quite buffy and banded, and indeed not until the fifth primary 
is reached do we find unadulterated, pure adult freckling. 
The tail moult of these birds, proceeding regularly from the outside inward, is 
very readily followed by means of the radical change in colour and pattern; the juvenile 
rectrices being rich chestnut, banded with black, especially heavily on the inner webs, 
while the new feathers are jet black with a slight greenish gloss. 
SUMMARY 
The reason I have treated in such detail this transition from juvenile to adult 
plumage, is that it seems to indicate the suppression of a specialized plumage pattern 
which is visible only through the accident of delay in certain wing-feathers. The flight- 
feathers of the adult, both primaries and secondaries, show no complex pattern. The 
former are brown, faintly flecked with grey, the latter evenly vermiculated with white. 
The very distinct bars and ocelli shown by feathers of intermediate growth [see Coloured 
