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.
Order HEMIPODII.