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LOBIOPHASIS CASTANEICAUDATU S, Sharpe.
Chestnut-tailed Lobed Pheasant.

Lobiophasis castaneicaudatus, Sharpe, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1877, p. 94.

 

Tuar a second species of Lobiophasis might occur in Borneo seemed to me always probable ; but I scarcely
expected that this would so soon become a reality. We are indebted for its discovery to His Excellency
Mr. H. T. Ussher, one of our most enlightened colonial governors; and scientific men have not been disap-
pointed in their hope that he would continue in Borneo the excellent work which he had done in Western
Africa. The present species has been sent from the Lawas river, situated in north-western Borneo, oppo-
site Labuan. From the fact that Bulwer’s Pheasant comes from the same locality, Mr. Bowdler Sharpe, in
describing this new species, suggests that it may be only LZ. bulwert in its second year’s plumage. This
seems to me highly improbable. There is nothing about the specimen, which I have carefully examined,
to indicate immaturity, the well-formed spurs and the completeness of the plumage appearing to me to be
signs of a fully adult male Pheasant. When we consider, too, the way in which the members of the genus
Euplocamus are distributed in the Himalayas, each species so closely allied, yet possessing a distinct habitat,
we cease to wonder at the probability of two species of Lobophasis being found side by side on the moun-
tains which boader the Lawas river.

The following description is taken from the original specimens :-—

“¢ Yale. Crown of head somewhat crested, dark chestnut brown ; sides of face bare, as well as small pen-
dent lobe at the gape; hind neck purplish brown; throat scantily clothed with dull brown plumes ; lower
throat, chest, and neck all round rich maroon, the plumes of the hinder part and sides of the neck narrowly
tipped with metallic steel-blue; back blackish, all the feathers with a metallic steel-blue tip, with a subter-
minal shade of velvety black, some of the dorsal plumes subterminally maroon; rump and upper tail-coverts
black, edged with dull metallic steel-blue; tail chestnut; wing-coverts black, with metallic steel-blue tips ;
quills black, the primaries browner ; breast and abdomen blackish brown, the sides of the breast slightly
washed with metallic purple; inner lining of wings ashy black. Total length 22 inches, culmen 1°6,
wing 11, tail 7°5, tarsus 3-30.

‘«¢ Female. General colour above brown, strongly washed with lighter or ochraceous brown, the whole
upper surface coarsely vermiculated with blackish wavy lines, the wing-coverts rather more rufous and
waved in the same manner as the back ; quills blackish, coarsely vermiculated with deep ochre, the prima-
ries only on the outer web, the secondaries on both, but less distinctly on the inner one ; tail deep chestnut,
with obscure wavy vermiculations of black ; sides of face and lower throat sandy brown, with narrow mesial
streaks of fulvous; throat ashy fulvous; under surface of body deep ochraceous brown, brighter on the fore
neck and chest, everywhere minutely vermiculated with black, the feathers sheathed down the centre with
ochre; the centre of the abdomen dusky brown; inner lining of quills ashy blackish. Total length 20
inches, wing 11, tail 7-5, tarsus 15.”

The birds are represented in the Plate about four fifths the natural size.