MALAY BRONZE-TAILED PEACOCK PHEASANT 49 



pale grey or buffy down, showing that the throat colour was formerly continuous 

 throughout the ventral surface. 



The dorsal neck-feathers are greyish with distinct traces of rufous in the centre of 

 the back. The spots are few and faint ; the largest in the scapular area. 



The wings are much as in the adult, except for intensity of colour and pattern. 

 One marked exception is the pronounced terminal buff spot on all but the tertials ; 

 strongest on the inner secondaries and gradually dying out in faint mottlings on the 

 middle primaries. The greater wing-coverts show this terminal spot much larger than 

 in the adult, forming a narrow buff band across the wing. The rectrices are irregularly 

 mottled, with more or less distinct bars of rufous as in the female. All are in full 

 active growth. The remiges are in full moult, the primaries proceeding in an outward 

 direction, as the outer four still show blood sheaths. In a somewhat older individual 

 the last trace of natal down externally visible is a median line down the throat. 



First Year Male Plumage. — In comparison with a fully adult male we find 

 the neck above almost devoid of the subterminal white spots, which in the adult are 

 continued from the head over the whole lower neck and upper mantle. The dorsal 

 spots are few and lack all metallic colour, and the whole upper plumage is darker and 

 less clear rich chestnut. 



Tail dark, and mottled irregularly and faintly with reddish, dull chestnut. At first 

 glance there seems no trace of the bronze mirrors, but on closer examination one detects 

 faint indications of metallic colouring on the two outer pairs of tail-feathers. The under 

 parts are only very faintly mottled— almost uniform dark brownish black. 



Thus in the adult, as compared with the juvenile, we find : an increase in the size of 

 the bird in general, and in the area on the plumage, of the white spots on the head and 

 neck ; a clearing of the various hues of the upper plumage, and a wholly new type of 

 tail. The rufous colour leaves the rectrices and increases on the back and rump. 



Length, 395 mm.; bill from nostril, 9; wing, 155; tail, 180; tarsus, 52; middle 

 toe and claw, 41 mm. At this age there is no trace of spurs. 



In one bird in first year plumage, where half the tail had been lost accidentally, the 

 incoming feathers all show a single well-developed ocellus on the outer web, with no 

 trace of an inner one. So the greater size of this eye-spot in the adult would seem to 

 be an accurate gauge of its phylogenetic appearance. 



SYNONYMY 



Chalcurus inopinatus Rothschild, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, XIII. 1903, p. 41 (Ulu Pahang) ; Rothschild, 

 Novitates Zoologicae, X. 1903, pi. II. ; Robinson, Jour. Fed. Malay States Mus, I. 1906, p. 130 (Ulu Dong 

 and Gunong Tahan, Pahang ; Gunong Mengkuang Lebah, Selangor) ; Robinson and Kloss, Jour. Fed. Malay 

 States Mus. Singapore, 8, 1918, p. 103. 



Polyplectron inopinatus Robinson, Jour. Fed. Malay States Mus. II. 1907, p. 6^ (Malay Peninsula, south of 

 Kra Isthmus); Robinson, idem. II. 1909, pp. 168, 219 (Mountains above Semarrgko Pass and Gunong Mengkuang 

 Lebah and Ulu Kali); Grant and Robinson, Report on Gunong Tahan Expedition, Birds, p. 55 (Gunong Tahan 

 and Mengkuang Lebah, Selangor). 



