152 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



marked with black. On the inner web this takes the form of a network or motthng", on 

 the outer web of outlined spots or zigzag lines. The shafts are blue. 



The chin is scantily clothed with degenerate white feathers, while over the 

 remainder of the head and neck there is only a very sparse growth of white featherlets. 

 The ear tuft is rather dense, brown, tipped with black. The rust-red collar becomes 

 vermiculated with black on the breast, and the red gives place to orange, and this to 

 warm buff as we proceed posteriorly, everywhere finely vermiculated with irregular black 

 lines. Lower abdomen, flanks and thighs, dusky, greyish brown, the disintegrated 

 barbs banded with buff. 



Tail feathers twelve in number. Shafts blue, black in colour, with irregular, 

 angular markings, fairly distinct on the outer web, almost obsolete on the inner. On 

 the central feathers these markings are buffy, on the outer they become chestnut. 



The fleshy colours are less strongly pronounced in the female. The blue of the 

 head and neck is paler ; iris grey ; beak pale horny or whitish ; legs and feet red. 

 Weight, from two and three-quarter to three and three-quarter pounds. 



Length, about 760 mm.; bill from nostril, 17; wing, 340; tail, 315; tarsus, 85; 

 middle toe and claw, 64 mm. 



Chick in Down.— The bird a few days old is similar to the chick of the Malay 

 argus, except that in general it is of a richer orange rufous, and the rufous marking on 

 the tips of the coverts and inner secondaries is usually in the form of two rounded or 

 irregular spots, not a complete transverse band. 



A bird about ten or twelve days of age is still covered with down, the wings and 

 tail well feathered out, and scattered contour feathers on the sides of the lower breast. 

 Dorsal down rufous, darker down the centre of the head. The black bases of the sides, 

 scapular and dorsal down give the appearance of black barring. On the back and rump 

 a vertebral line of dark rich brown, about 10 mm. wide, extend from the mid-back to 

 the base of the tail. On each side of this there is a pale buff stripe of the same extent, 

 but narrower in width. Below, paler, the neck rufous, the chin whitish, the lower parts 

 colder grey. 



The lesser wing coverts possess the most unique juvenile marks, central, sub- 

 terminal yellowish buff spots, surrounded with black. These fall into two lines, 

 following the oblique direction of the coverts and primaries. 



The sprouting primaries are rufous, mottled or irregularly barred with black, much 

 like the adult female, but more decidedly barred. The secondaries lack the rufous, the 

 lesser ones especially showing barred areas clear across the vane, successively of black, 

 fine buff mottling and coarse buff mottling, one after the other. There is a distinct 

 terminal single or double reddish spot. The rectrices are dark with faint irregular and 

 scanty buff mottling, the four outer pairs tipped with a band of pale rufous. 



Juvenile Plumage. — In birds well advanced in juvenile plumage, flecks of the 

 orange natal down are still visible here and there on the face and side neck. The moult 

 of the head and neck is thus long delayed, and indeed it remains quite downy through 

 much of the brief juvenile stage. When the moult does at last occur, the adult female 

 characters are pronounced, the face, crown, chin and throat being almost identical. 



