46 THE THIBETAN SAND-GROUSE. 



closely and somewhat irregularly barred with blackish brown ; 

 chin, throat, cheeks, ear-coverts, sides and front of neck, and 

 a narrow band across the back of the neck (not shown in 

 Gould's figure, and wanting in some specimens, but very con- 

 spicuous in most adult males) bright buffy yellow in the breed- 

 ing season ; white tinged with the same colour in the winter ; 

 lower part of the back of the neck, upper back and upper 

 breast white, slightly tinged vinaceous with close regular narrow 

 transverse blackish brown bars ; the whole mantle, including 

 the scapulars and tertiaries, vinaceous fawn colour, brightening to 

 rufous buff along its (the mantle's) exterior margin, with large 

 conspicuous black blotches on the inner webs of the scapulars, 

 and everywhere excessively finely vermiculated with blackish 

 brown, which is scarcely perceptible without close examination 

 except on the upper back and towards the tips of the elongated 

 tertials ; the lower back and rump are white, very beautifully 

 vermiculated with dark somewhat greyish brown ; upper tail- 

 coverts similar, but the ground colour tinged with rufous fawn ; 

 central tail feathers with the basal portions similar to the upper 

 tail-coverts, but with a slightly more vinaceous tinge and 

 with the elongated attenuated portions, which in fine males are 

 at least five inches in length, black with a slaty bloom on them. 

 Primaries and their greater coverts black, with a slaty bloom 

 on them towards the tips, the hinder ones with a more or less 

 extensive buffy white patch on the inner web at the tip. Se- 

 condaries black, but with more or less of the outer webs (less 

 in the earlier— more in the later ones) similar in colour to the 

 tertiaries. Lateral tail feathers bright rufous buff, tipped with 

 pure white and with several widely separated, moderately broad, 

 more or less cuneiform transverse black bars. Lower breast 

 grey ; abdomen, sides, flanks, vent, tibial and tarsal plumes and 

 shortest lower tail-coverts white, the leg feathers sometimes 

 slightly tinged with fulvous and with traces of narrow trans- 

 verse barrings on the tibia. 



Female. — (As I believe, relying on the recorded sexing of my 

 specimens, but they may be young males). Much resembling 

 the male, but differing in the much greater extent of pencilling 

 and barring. The whole mantle and the whole of the breast 

 (not merely the upper breast as in the male) is distinctly and 

 conspicuously lineated with narrow zig-zaggy dark brown lines. 

 The mantle of the male is, doubtless, when closely looked into, 

 excessively finely vermiculated with blackish grey or greyish 

 brown, but in the female these markings are very conspicuous, 

 and on the longer scapulars and tertials are broader apart, and 

 fully as distinctly marked as those on the upper breast of the 

 male. The linear elongated portion of the central tail-feathers 

 in the female does not apparently exceed three inches in 

 length. The bill too is decidedly smaller than in the male. 



