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Show 716 LIEUT.-COL. GODWIN-AUSTEN ON [Nov. 28, up, with the hope that it will be also figured in the ' Proceedings' of this Society. Mr. H u m e may well be proud of having discovered this beautiful addition to the Phasianidse and to the birds of India; but I much regret that he did not give it the title of munipurensis, so significant of its home, and to which it seems almost restricted, although it no doubt extends eastwards along the main range, the Patkoi, some distance. How close it gets to its nearest ally, Phasianus ellioti (from Che-kiang in Eastern China), and what other intermediate forms are yet to he found in that vast unexplored tract of forest-clad mountains that intervene between Munipur and the Singpho country, is an interesting point. A grand field lies here for future travellers and naturalists. Judging from what I have received from the neighbourhood of Brahmakund, and the number of yet unde-scribed shells in m y collection, a great change in the fauna from that of the country west sets in here, and extends into that of Szechuen, where Pere David obtained so many new and novel forms of animals and birds. Original description. " Male. Length 33 inches, expanse 26, tail (of sixteen feathers) from vent 21, wing 8*6, tarsus 2*75, bill from gape 1*3. Weight 2 lb. 6 oz. " The legs, feet, claws, and spurs (the latter 0*85 inch in length) all a pale delicate drab-brown; the facial skin an intense crimson ; irides orange; bill greenish horny, dusky on cere and base of upper mandible, and pale yellowish horny towards the tips of both mandibles. A narrow black band bounds the anterior angle of the bare, velvety, crimson, diamond-shaped patch in which the eye is set ; the forehead, crown, occiput, and ear-coverts are brown ; the feathers of the occiput, especially on the sides of this and a few of those on the crown also, with a dark terminal hair-line, producing a somewhat scaly appearance; the chin, throat, neck all round, upper breast, and extreme upper part of the back a smoky black ; all the feathers, except those of the chin and quite the upper throat, fringed with metallic blue-black, which, except on the front of the middle and lower throat, is, owing to the overlapping of the feathers, the only colour seen. Just inside the fringe, on all the feathers of the upper parts of the breast and back, there is a triangular or arrowhead black velvet spot; the interscapulary region is dark metallic pheasant maroon, or red with a fiery crimson sheen, each feather with a similar subterminal velvet-black shaft-spot; middle and lower back, rump, and all but the longest upper tail-coverts black with a grey-blue sheen, each feather fringed with white ; the longest upper tail-coverts and the tail grey-brown1; the central tail-feathers with eight rather narrow and irregular, mingled black and chestnut transverse bands2; the next pair, which are eight inches shorter, 1 Or ashy grey with a brown tinge. 2 In my specimen dark chestnut bands 0 4 inch wide with two parallel black bars on the basal side. |
