230 THE RED JUNGLE-FOWL, 



The legs and feet are plumbeous or slaty, sometimes browner 

 and purpler, sometimes darker and with a greenish tinge, some- 

 times paler, a kind of slaty grey. The comb, thin and deeply 

 notched above, which is much reduced in the females, and 

 wattles, which (though Blyth contradicts Dr. Jerdon on this point) 

 have been wanting in all females that I have examined, vary 

 from a deep dull red to bright crimson ; the skin of sides of head, 

 chin, throat and upper part of neck in front, smooth and red 

 also, but usually somewhat paler, bluer and more fleshy ; ear 

 lappets, as a rule, white or pinky white in Indian birds, red like 

 the comb in Burmese and Malayan ones ; irides light red to 

 orange red ; bill dark brown to blackish dusky, paler towards 

 tip of lower mandible, often reddish in the male towards the 

 base ; in the female horny brown above, fleshy grey below. 



In a young male the naked skin of head and neck was fleshy 

 grey mixed with dull blue ; the legs dark pure slaty grey. 



The Plate, as already noticed, is not unnatural in the 

 position in which the male is shown, although it is but rarely 

 that the tail is thus raised. The face is never quite uniform 

 in colour with comb and wattles as here shown. Of course the 

 plate is idiotically mislettered. 



The chicks are the prettiest little things imaginable, with 

 fawn-coloured heads, with a broad coronal maroon stripe fram- 

 ed in black, and maroon backs, with a broad creamy buff 

 stripe on either side also framed in black. The bills yellow ; 

 legs and feet greenish. 



It may be useful to notice that very odd nondescript birds 

 may be shot of this species, which seem to be neither males nor 

 females. I know I was much puzzled with the first of these I 

 shot, and thought I had secured at least a hermaphrodite, but 

 these queer looking birds are really nothing but males, who at 

 the close of the breeding season have dropped part or the 

 whole of the neck hackles, which have been replaced by short 

 dusky brown feathers. 



