PHEASANT. 209 



few hairs; down the middle it is more loose than on the sides, 

 appearing wrinkled ;* the breast and upper part of the back full 

 red ; the neck and breast inclined to orange ; the others parts of the 

 plumage, and tail rufous brown, marked all over with white spots, 

 surrounded with black ; the tail is rounded in shape, composed of 

 twenty feathers, which are black at the ends ; legs whitish, furnished 

 with a spur behind. 



The female has the head and neck of a silky black, glossed with 

 blue, marked on the sides of the throat with an irregular patch of 

 red ; the feathers at the back of the head and nape crimson, and 

 those of the whole upper part of the head loose, tending backwards ; 

 the general markings of the rest of the plumage much as in the 

 male, but the colours less bright; the back, and part of the wing- 

 coverts, besides the spots of white, are also beautifully intermixed 

 with streaks of black and crimson, on a fillemot ground ; the rump 

 and tail feathers are somewhat similar, the crimson decreasing 

 towards the tail, the end of which is dusky black ; legs furnished 

 with a blunt spur behind. 



Inhabits India. — Mrs. Wheeler informed me, that she had both 

 sexes alive in her possession, and had it not been for an illness among 

 the poultry on board the ship, should have brought the above 

 mentioned male to England ; this sex, when alive, had the faculty 

 of dilating, and lengthening the flap on the throat, so as to hang 

 over the breast, much in the same manner as the Cock Turkey does 

 the caruncles on the neck and flap of the forehead, at which time 

 the colours were greatly heightened, appearing of a beautiful deep 

 blue, barred across with crimson. 



These birds are by no means common, though not unfrequent in 

 drawings done in India ; and are particularly well figured in those of 

 Mr. Middleton, and Lady Impey : Sir Elijah informed me, that it 

 is known in India by two names, the one Singhee Moory, or Marbled 



* In fact, this flap is only attached at its base, round and over the bill, and a little way 

 on the throat, from whence it hangs down like a gorget. 



VOL. VIII. E E 



