THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
coarsely barred and mottled with buff than in the male; tail-feathers 
reddish-brown down the middle, shading into sandy-olive on the sides 
and with wide irregular triple bars of black, buff, and black. 
Total length about 24*5 inches; wing 8*5 inches; tail 11*5 inches; 
tarsus 2*4 inches. 
Females in first autumn-plumage resemble the adult. 
Young males and females in first plumage. — ^Very similar in general colour 
and markings to the adult female as regards the plumage of the head 
and back, but most of the feathers have a narrow buff shaft -stripe and 
a subterminal buff cross-bar; the lower back and rump blackish, 
barred and widely margined with sandy -buff; wing -coverts black with 
buff shafts, widely margined and sometimes barred with pale sandy - 
brown. Underparts pale whitish -buff, sometimes brighter on the chest, 
which is spotted and mottled with blackish; sides of the body mottled 
with black, the markings on the feathers being often more or less con- 
centric. The secondaries and tail-feathers are marked very similarly 
to those of the female, but the former are very pointed at the extremity, 
and the latter much shorter — about four inches in length. 
Young in down. — Crown dark chestnut-brown, which colour is con- 
tinued in a narrow line to the base of the bill, and with a sandy -buff sub- 
marginal line on either side; forehead, wide superciliary stripes, and 
sides of the head buff; a dark-brown triangular spot beneath the ear; 
occiput and nape of a more rufous-chestnut, like the inter -scapular 
region, wing -coverts and rump; back buff, with three wide dorsal 
stripes, one down the middle and one on either side, all three being 
often confluent on the rump, and the median one X-shaped, much 
widened out at the extremities. Underparts uniform pale yellowish -buff. 
The quills in the birds described (killed in June) are about half an inch 
in length. 
Female assuming male plumage .—IHen pheasants which have become 
barren, either from age or through disease, or from an injury to the 
ovary, generally assume the plumage of the cock to a greater or less 
extent, and in many instances the male plumage is so completely donned 
that it is only by their smaller size, much shorter tail, and usually by 
the absence of black margins to the feathers of the chest and breast 
that the true sex of the individual can be detected from its external 
appearance. Occasionally females in normal plumage are to be found 
with well-developed spurs. I have dissected two such birds, and in 
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