THE WESTERN BAMBOO PARTRIDGE. 99 



The irides were brown, hazel brown, reddish brown, and, 

 Godwin-Austen says, u dark brown." 



The bill in one was, upper mandible and base of lower mandi- 

 ble dark brown ; rest of lower mandible whitish ; in another brown ; 

 in others greenish brown, and, Godwin-Austen says, "pale 

 horny black, paler beneath." 



The PLATE really represents very fairly the particular speci- 

 men figured, the only one I then possessed, a male, but this was 

 not a good average specimen. Mostly the males have longer 

 and sharper spurs ; generally the bills are brown and the legs 

 more or less greenish. Of course, the females differ in wanting 

 generally the spurs, and in having the eye streak pale cinnamon 

 rufous instead of black. 



Major Godwin-Austen separated the Shillong bird as B. 

 hopkinsoni, but the differences on which he relied are purely 

 individual, and not local.* The fact is, the birds vary very much, 

 and unfortunately the bird we have figured turns out to be rather 

 an abnormal specimen. 



In some birds all the feathers of the sides and flanks have 

 a huge, velvet black, subterminal, more or less heart-shaped 

 spot ; in others, these spots are less numerous, smaller, and 

 more of a diamond shape. 



The lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts are in all a 

 more or less dull, pale olivaceous brown, more or less barred, 

 irregularly, with very fine zig-zag lines of a paler colour. In 

 some birds, besides this, many of the feathers of these parts 

 have a conspicuous triangular black spot, often running some 

 distance up the shaft, subterminal, the feather being tipped with 

 burly white ; in others again, there are no traces of these black 

 spots, except on the very longest upper tail-coverts, where they 

 appear greatly reduced in size and do not run up the shafts. 



In some specimens, the feathers of the interscapulary region 

 and shorter scapulars exhibit, more or less, white spotting, or 

 short zig-zaggy dull white lines. In other birds there is no 

 trace of this ; in some birds again, the sides of the breast are 

 profusely white spotted ; in others, as in the specimen figured, 

 there is no trace of this. 



In some birds the chin (vide Godwin-Austen, I have seen none 

 such myself) is dark brown ; in some before me it is very pale ; 

 but in the majority it is pale ochraceous, like the lores and 

 throat. 



Generally the tail is rufous brown, conspicuously banded with 

 transverse, freckly bars of black and rufescent buff. In one 



* I first pointed this out, S. F., V., 1877, P- 494- Since then Dr. Anderson has 

 compared the types of both species, and agrees that they are identical. I, too, by 

 Dr. Anderson's kindness, have been able to compare his type with my own large 

 series of Shillong specimens, and am quite certain that the two are identical. 



