Ss | ih ae ; Sf wos AS 2 ao; OENATS DAKO OO Gaya Qo a> iy, WAC RG pend XG « MG LS Fs Ray ~ a ee py bird having been kept in confinement, for this character was not particularly conspicuous in the specimen I have figured from? “I shot this fine bird,” says Lieut. Smith, ‘near the Pangong Lake in Little Thibet. It is a male, and the only one of the species I have ever met with; therefore I can tell you but little of its habits. I found it with its covey of young ones, which were just out of the shells. Some of the latter hid themselves under the rock on which I was sitting, and the old bird came near enough to be killed with a stick. It made a great noise, ran remarkably fast, and did not take wing until very hard pressed. The hills in the neigh- bourhood of which it was discovered, were of a rugged and barren character, and destitute of forests or brushwood for about a hundred miles. I noticed that the hen bird was grey, but did not shoot her on account of the young ones. “I shot my bird about one hundred miles north-east of the capital of Ladak, ina part of the country which is very thinly inhabited. I had never heard of its existence before, and the Thibetans with me seemed as much surprised on seeing the bird as myself. ‘This new species must be very scarce, for although I had been twice previously on shooting excursions in the same country, I did not meet with it on either occasion; and although on the present I remained for six weeks in the vicinity, I did not even see a second example; I regret therefore that I did not also secure the female.” Band across the forehead, stripe over each eye to the nape, sides of the neck and throat buffy-white; the band on the forehead bounded before and behind with a narrow line of black ; feathers of the lores and ear-coverts buffy-white bordered with black ; eyelash and a bare space behind the eye red, below the latter a broad semi-crescentic mark of black; crown of the head dark rust-red 5 occiput and nape mottled-buff and dark brown; back and sides of the neck rust-red, separated from the white of the throat by a line of black; feathers of the upper surface alternately barred with buff and reddish-brown ; wing-coverts similar, but the bands not so regular, and with a stripe of light buff in the direction of the shaft ; wing-feathers brown, crossed by irregular bars of buff; central tail-feathers pale greyish-buff, crossed by irregular bands of brown, and the grey portion freckled with brown; lateral feathers rust-red, the inner webs of those nearest the central ones irregularly barred with brown; feathers of the under surface buff, those of the centre of the breast with a crescent of black at the extremity of each, which increasing in size forms a large horse-shoe-shaped patch on the centre of the abdomen ; the flank feathers, in like manner, have a broad crescent of deep rusty-red at the tip of each, and a narrow line of buff down the shaft; vent, thighs, and under tail-coverts greyish-buff, without markings of any kind; bill and feet olive. Total length, 113 inches; bill, from gape, 4; wing, 61; tail, 4; tarsi, 12. The figures are of the natural size.