18 LOTSY AND KUIPER, À PRELIM. STATEMENT OF THE RESULTS OF MR. 
The most reliable measures are those of the tarsus and middletoe, as- 
the spurs differ greatly with age; from these we feel.inclinéd to believe 
that the Celebes bird was not a pure bankiva. 
As to the moult BEEBE l. c. p. 209 says: 
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the molt of Red Junglefowl 
is the partial eclipse plumage into which the cock enters immediately 
after the breeding season. In this it agrees with G. sonnerati. The long, 
red and yellow hackles are shed, while the remainder of the worn plu- 
mage remains intact. They are at once replaced by short, dusky brown 
or black feathers, not like thé hackles of the hen, but very similar both 
to the hackles of the juvenile plumage and to the normal feathers of the 
mid and lower mantles, which in the full-plumaged cock are conceiled 
from view by the overlapping, long lanceolate hackles. This eclipse plu- 
mage has sometimes a gloss of purplish or purplish blue. The long cen- 
tral tail feathers are sometimes shed simultaneously with the hackles, 
more often they fall out a little later. In two or three months the regu- 
lar annual molt begins and the eclipse hackles are shed with the rest of 
the plumage, and in the autumn the cock is seen in all his resplendent 
colors, ready for another year of virile life. BEEBE then says that there 
is no apparent cause for the assumption of this dull plumage, ‚so that 
for the present we must be content to state the mere fact that these 
birds expend a considerable extra outlay of vitality in growing a locali- 
sed patch of feathers, which lasts only a few weeks, and which in cha- 
racter is both atavistic and like the generalised feathers of the upper 
back. The time of assumption of this generalised neck plumage varies 
with the locality. From the terai south of Darjeeling I have a bird in 
full moult, shot on the twentieth of May, but this is unusually early 
even for the northern range. In the Malay states, August seems the usu- 
al period. Sportsmen who shoot birds in this condition usually consider 
them as abnormal, perhaps hermaphroditic individuals.” 
„I believe that in birds of strictly wild blood and pedigree, this sch \ 
mout: is regular, but in several cocks which I have shot, and in many 
more which I have trapped, I have noticed a great irregularity and e- 
ven asymmetry in this moult, due, I am convinced, to the infusion of 
the blood of native village birds.’’ 
Juvenile Plumage. In this phase the neck - and rump - hackles are 
short and broader, with considerable variation, due to the earlier or 
later moult of the individual bird. The colours of these feathers are 
