OCR Text |
Show 718 MALE AND FEMALE OF PHASIANUS HUMLE. [Nov. 28, whitish-ochre centre and an edging of the same tint, producing crescentic barring or ornamentation to those parts; a few of the feathers on the right and left anterior breast have half the web black with a central white bar. Abdomen dull dingy pale ochreous. The under tail-coverts are mottled white, black, and ruddy brown ; the longer feathers being tipped pure white, succeeded by a black bar, then rich chestnut, and black at the base. The scapulars and secondary coverts are, on the inner web, more or less velvet-black, mottled with the same colour on a sienna ground, on the outer web narrowly tipped whitish, forming three wing-bands (two distinct, one rather broken). The secondaries are mottled in the same manner with four irregular blackish bars crossing each feather, every bar margined on the outside with pale ruddy ochre and margined at the end with pale ochre. The primaries are dark sepia-brown, with four elongate ochre spots on the outer web, the inner web at all these points having a mottling of chestnut. Wing greyish within. Dimensions-wing 8*25 inches, tail 7*0, bill in front 1*0, bill from gape 1*2, tarsus 2*2. The female of this species thus differs from that of P. ellioti in not possessing the black on the throat; besides, the white underparts of that bird (which are in keeping with those of the male) are also absent. The tail would appear to be the same; and the red nude skin round the eye is also to be made out. When I first saw this bird, it reminded me very much of the coloration of Bambusicola fytchi, a common bird in the Naga hills, in spite of the difference in size and other characters ; and certainly there is, in the lower back and rump, a curious similarity. Subdue in B. fytchi its rusty colouring, and reduce the black on the breast to the dull ochraceous barring of this Pheasant, and it would be still closer in resemblance; one can trace on the sides of the breast in P. humia that a few of the feathers are black, while in the Bambusicola, in the female, the outer tail-feathers are tipped blackish with a white edging. This bird is a true Phasianus; and I do not consider that there are characters sufficient to place it in a new genus, as was proposed by Mr. Elliot when he created the term Calophasis in 1872 for Ph. ellioti. 6. Notes on a Species of Stick Insect reared in the Insect- House in the Society's Gardens. By A R T H U R THOMSON "• [Received November 15, 1882.] (Plate LII.) One of the most curious and interesting insects that has been reared in the Insect-House during the past season is a species of Stick Insect (Bacillus patellifer, Bates, Trans. Linn. Soc. xxv. 1 Communicated by the Secretary. |