Читать книгу A Manual of Philippine Birds - Richard C. McGregor - Страница 26

 Polyplectron napoleonis Lesson, Traité d’Orn. (1831), 487, 650; Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1893), 22, 361; Bourns and Worcester, Minnesota Acad. Nat. Sci. Occ. Papers (1894), 1, 43; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 8.

 Polyplectron nehrkornæ Blasius, Mitth. orn. Ver. Wien (1891), 1; Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1893), 22, 360.

 Polyplectrum napoleonis Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 39.

Pavo real, Spanish name.

Palawan (Everett, Whitehead, Platen, Bourns & Worcester, White).

Adult male.—Black; top of head, crest, and hind neck green, changing with the light to purple; a large white patch from base of lower mandible extending over ear-coverts; a narrow superciliary line of white (this line is absent in some specimens; in others wider and confluent on nape); mantle, secondaries, and greater and median wing-coverts green, changing to blue and purple, bases of the feathers black; remainder of wing brown or blackish; back and rump black, thickly marked with small, rusty buff spots; longest coverts and rectrices similar but the spots fewer and lighter and each feather with two large, round or oval spots of peacock-green, surrounded by a black ring and an outer gray ring; longest coverts tipped with a narrow line of pale buff; rectrices tipped with lines of black, gray, white, and gray, the white line narrow and sharply defined; under parts all black, except tail-coverts which are speckled with buff. “Bill black tipped with pale horn-color; eyes chocolate-brown; legs, feet, and nails brown.” (Bourns and Worcester.) A male from Iwahig, Palawan, measures: Wing, 190; tail, 240; exposed culmen, 28; bill from nostril, 15; tarsus, 66; middle toe with claw, 56.

Female.—Top of head and a short crest dark brown; sides of face, chin, and throat white; remainder of the plumage brown, more rusty above and on wings, finely speckled with dark brown and black; tail with the large round metallic spots of the male replaced by black spots having little or no metallic color. A female from Iwahig, Palawan, measures: Wing, 180; tail, 183; exposed culmen, 22; bill from nostril, 13; tarsus, 54; middle toe with claw, 48.

Young.—“An immature male resembles the female, but has tail and greater coverts like those of adult male, though the ocelli are much smaller and absent on inner webs of all the tail-feathers except three middle pairs; one or two feathers of mantle have a metallic bluish green patch in the middle and traces are apparent of black plumage on mantle, wing-coverts, throat, and under parts.” (Grant.)

This beautiful peacock pheasant, the “pavo real” of the Spaniards, is confined to the Island of Palawan. Bourns and Worcester state that the species is extremely shy, all of their specimens, including 18 adults beside young, being taken by natives in snares. They give the following average measurements: Eleven males, length, 519; wing, 180; tail, 222; culmen, 24; tarsus, 61; seven females, length, 420; wing, 166; tail, 150; culmen, 22; tarsus, 55.

Bourns and Worcester have shown that the character upon which P. nehrkornæ was based—i.e., narrow superciliary stripes not confluent on nape—is variable to a great degree and not dependent upon age, so napoleonis is accepted as the correct specific name for the Palawan bird, although originally applied to a specimen supposed to have come from Luzon, an island in which the genus certainly does not exist.

Major John R. White has secured a fine series of these birds at the Iwahig penal colony, and he states that he has seldom seen the birds until snared by the natives.