GERMAIN'S PEACOCK PHEASANT 75 



DETAILED DESCRIPTION 



Adult Male. — As a whole much darker than in the northern form. Top of head, 

 nape and upper neck of loose-barbed, black feathers with indistinct white markings, 

 chiefly in the form of a shaft-streak or spot, and a terminal or sub-terminal band. On 

 the lower dorsal neck, where the feathers become somewhat more firm, fine concentric 

 transverse bands of white are visible. Abruptly on the mantle appear fully-developed 

 ocelli, of a dark, lustrous green, changing to a rich purple. These cover the entire 

 mantle, scapulars, wing-coverts and tertiaries. The rest of these feathers are dark 

 brown, irregularly but thickly dotted with small roundish buff spots. The iridescent 

 ocellus is surrounded by a narrow ring of black, then another of the dark brown feather- 

 background, while the buff spots coalesce around the distal third of the ocellus to form 

 a solid band. 



The ocelli are well developed usually up to the 7th from the outer secondary, while 

 on the 6th and 5th there are abortive vestiges. The remainder are unornamented save 

 for more or less spotting on the outer web or margin, while the primaries are plain dark 

 brown. 



On all the long upper tail-coverts and on all the rectrices twin ocelli are developed, 

 surrounded first by a dark ring and then a wider one of ashy brown. 



The chin is white, but the throat, sides of the face and neck usually have the same 

 pattern as the crown, the feathers being black with a spot or V-shaped shaft-mark and a 

 sub-terminal band of white. 



The buff markings of the ventral surface form fairly regular bands on the upper 

 breast, but posteriorly these disintegrate into an irregular mottling, the very dark brown 

 or almost black ground holding true throughout the plumage. 



In unusually full-plumaged adults it is interesting to note that well-marked traces of 

 ocelli are found scattered over the lower back and even on the upper rump. Usually 

 these are only more or less distinct, reddish-buff, sub-terminal blurs, but here and there 

 a core of black pigment appears, or even a diminutive but perfect, iridescent green, 

 ocellus. 



The tail-feathers are usually twenty in number. I have never found twenty-four 

 and the intermediate number only five times. In some specimens there is a decided 

 reduction in the size, perfection and gloss of the ocellus on the inner web of the outer 

 tail-feathers, very decidedly hinting of the condition in the more southern malaccensis. 

 The general dimensions are the same as in bicalcarattmi bicalcarahmi, but the fleshy 

 colours are more intense, the facial skin sometimes approaching scarlet. 



Adult Female. — Of a general darker colour than is usual in bicalcaratuni, with 

 the ocelli more highly developed. 



Head and neck much as in the adult male, with the crown feathers shorter and less 

 disintegrated. Mantle dark brown, vermiculated with paler buff. There are fewer ocelli 

 on the lower mantle and wings than in the male, and they are more degenerate. 

 Anteriorly they are little more than black pigment spots, showing an increase of central 

 greenish gloss as we proceed backward, until on the longest scapulars and wing-coverts 

 they reach their fullest development. Everywhere they are characterized by a short, 



