7° A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



markings are on the tertiaries. These feathers are pointed and show a series of six or 

 eight broken, irregular cross-bars of mottled rufous, while the tip has a broad band of 

 the same colour, enclosing a triangular, unmarked space of dark brown. In fact, on 

 many of the smaller feathers a small clear area just above the rufous tip suggests an 

 incipient ocellus. 



First Year Male Plumage. — The adult plumage is acquired slowly, and the first 

 year cock reaches only the stage of development of colour and pattern of the adult 

 female. 



The loose-barbed plumage of the top of the head and hind neck is brown, very 

 obscurely barred with paler brown. On the upper mantle the feathers become more firm, 

 and show several irregular cross-bands of olive grey. Posteriorly we notice a slight 

 widening of the black interspace between the two terminal bands, and in the next two 

 or three rows of feathers this shows a rounded concentration, first of dark brown, then 

 black, pigment, and finally, on the hinder mantle, scapulars and wing-coverts a gloss 

 begins to be perceptible, which, on the greater coverts and tertiaries, becomes a fairly 

 well-developed violet ocellus with fainter greenish reflections. Simultaneously with the 

 development of the dark pigmental spot there develops along its distal margin in the 

 terminal grey band isolated dashes of buffy white. These coalesce into angular splotches, 

 much broken, but not mottled by the brown ground colour as we proceed backward, 

 until we have a wide white border of angularly associated white lines, about i mm. in 

 length, forming a wide broken distal frame, partly surrounding the ocelli. 



On the secondaries the last hint of gloss, and indeed of a distinct pigment ocellus, 

 dies out on the 9th, the succeeding eight feathers showing an irregular freckling of the 

 short white lines on the outer web. The primaries are wholly uniform dark brown. 

 The scapulars seem to carry the ocellation across the back, but there is actually a 

 continuation of the olive-grey banded feathers of the upper mantle straight down the 

 back, with little change except for an alteration in colour of the rhachis from brown to 

 white, producing the finest of hair lines, ending, however, in a tiny subterminal enlarge- 

 ment. On the rump and shorter tail-coverts this is rendered less conspicuous by an 

 irregular number of rounded, lateral white spots, which appear near the tip of the 

 feather. On the longest tail-coverts these are quite numerous, a dozen or more on the 

 distal part of each web. Above these we find the broken cross-bars which characterize 

 all the dorsal plumage. 



The rectrices proper show the same general pattern, with the important addition of 

 a separate green ocellus with violet reflections near the terminal portion of each web, 

 with, however, no hint of a white frame. In backward birds the gloss may be absent 

 and the ocelli only clouded blotches of brown or black. As we proceed outward the 

 broken barring becomes less and less apparent, until the outer rectrices show plain, dark- 

 brown webs ; two sub-terminal ocelli with a freckling of small white spots along the tip. 



The chin and throat are dingy white, shading rather gradually into the brown 

 ventral plumage. This is identical in its vague olive-brown barring with that of the 

 upper neck and anterior part of the mantle. The only exception is that the longest 

 under tail-coverts show a few rounded, whitish terminal spots. The spurs are barely 

 discernible. 



