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Show 1 9 0 3 . ] JAPANESE LONG-TAILED FOWLS. 2 3 3 pretty, very active, and very healthy, and throve well on ordinary food, consisting of oatmeal, chopped meat and vegetables, and mixed grain of various kinds. One of the chicks was accidentally killed when I turned the hen out of the nest, having got beneath its mother's feet as she was scratching the earth. I examined this specimen, and found that the primaries and secondaries of the wings were present as short black quills with a little down at the tip, but that there was no trace of tail-feathers or tail-coverts, nothing but down over the rest of the body. The comb was visible at the back of the beak as a slight yellow ridge with six teeth. The toes were four in number; the skin on the legs was yellow. June 23rd. Age 10 days.-Another chick had been lost up to this date, having escaped and probably fallen a victim to a cat. The feathers of the wings now reached nearly to the end of the body, and were chequered in colour, being marked transversely with dark colour and grey alternately. The tail-feathers, i. e. rectrices, had begun to sprout in some of the chicks, elsewhere there was still only down. The combs appeared no larger. July Qth. Age 23 days.-The chicks were now half-fledged: another had been lost by escaping, so that only seven survived. Feathers were growing on the shoulders and sides of the breast, but the head, back, and front of the breast were still downy, with the original markings. Tail-coverts also appearing. Feathers, except tails, all barred with dark and grey, so that the general appearance was speckled and very inconspicuous against the soil. The tail-feathers were dark, nearly black, but not steel blue-black like those of the adult. It was interesting to see the chicks scatter in all directions, and then crouch down whenever the hen uttered her special warning cry, as she did often when she heard a jackdaw croak. In four of the chicks the tails were more developed than in the rest; in these also the combs were beginning to grow higher and to get red. These four proved to be cocks, so that the sexual difference begins to show itself at this early age. Jidy 28th. Age 1 month 15 days.-The four cocks showed their sexual characters a little more distinctly, the wattles and ear-lobes being indicated by a tinge of red. In the three hens the combs had not begun to enlarge and showed no red. One of the cocks was darker than all the other chicks, and had a slender tail, not very long and bent downwards. The hens were light-coloured, with white breasts, their tails being as long as those of some of the cocks. Two of the cocks had dark breasts. Aug. 4:th. Age 1 month 3 weeks.-Chicks now fully fledged. In the four cocks reddish tints were appearing in the feathers of the back and wings, while in the hens only neutral tints were present. The combs in the cocks were a little more developed, in the hens not developed. The tail-coverts in the cocks were growing, but not longer than the rectrices, and the sickle-feathers not conspicuous. The red feathers mentioned' above are the beginning of the |