22 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



Again attention must be called to the interesting fact that the development of 

 plumage from chick through juvenile and first year to the adult is one of decided 

 convergence, the full-plumaged cocks being much more alike than are any of the 

 other stages. 



Adult Female. — Much darker throughout than in normal female Goldens ; it is a 

 dark rufous instead of a buff bird. There is no paling even on the ventral surface, and 

 the black bars and mottlings do not die out as they approach the mid line, but are 

 continued quite across, the entire under-surface being thus uniformly banded. The 

 chin and throat, instead of white, are almost black, slightly tipped with brownish. The 

 lores, face and ear-coverts are quite black. Traces of the masculine ruff are visible in a 

 slight elongation and a grey powdering of these feathers. The tail markings are like 

 those of the normal female, the lateral feathers being predominately a very rich, 

 dark rufous. 



Several observers have recorded the appearance of Black-throated Goldens in 

 crosses between Golden and Amherst Pheasants. One account (Thomas, " Proc. Zool. 

 Soc," 191 1, pt. I. p. 6) goes as far as the F3 generation and is as follows : " In Elliot's 

 * Phasianidae ' is a coloured plate of a pair of Thaumalea obsctira with their young, 

 which were considered by him and some other ornithologists as a variety of picta ; 

 according to this plate the birds apparently bred true. 



" In my pheasantry in 1907, three Amherst hens were mated with a Golden cock 

 and produced a number of young called Fi, in the pedigree. In 1909 two pairs of these 

 Fi birds were mated, and from these two pens twenty F2 chicks were hatched. Amongst 

 them were three chicks of a deep chocolate brown, in startling contrast to the others, 

 which were cream colour with a bronzing of russet on the back and throat. The down 

 of these obscura chicks was of a uniform dark brown to the skin, and each eye was 

 rimmed with a finely pencilled cream line, which was connected by another cream line 

 across the top of the bill, giving the quaint appearance of a pair of spectacles ; there was 

 also a cream patch on the throat, varying in size in each individual, sometimes being a 

 mere spot. The legs were a dull olive brown. These brown chicks were produced from 

 both pens, and were of both sexes, but unfortunately only one of the three (a cock) was 

 reared. Thaumalea birds attain adult plumage only in the second year, so it was not 

 till July this year that my surmise that obscura had been produced was confirmed. The 

 cock has the same barred tail (pattern, Amherst ; coloration. Golden), and the same dark 

 brown on head and throat and neck, as the bird depicted on Elliot's plate, but his breast 

 is a duskier red and the crest and mantle paler. When a chick, his coloration was 

 similar to the young shown on Elliot's plate, only the brown was a deeper, richer shade. 

 This F2 cock was mated in the spring of 1910 with two F2 hens, his sisters. The 

 darkest hens were picked out, with golden eye-skin (yellow with red round the rim) ; 

 Amherst hens are lighter and greyer in plumage than the Golden, and the eye-skin is a 

 greenish blue. From this mating eight birds were hatched, four cream-coloured and 

 four dark chicks ; these last had precisely the same coloration as that of the father. 

 The numbers tally with those to be expected according to Mendel's law. I hope to 

 obtain more evidence next season from the same birds, and to have better luck, for all 

 these eight chicks lived only a few days. As I intend to breed again from him, I cannot 



