LÖNNBERG AND RENDAHL, ORNITHOLOGY OF ECUADOR. 31 



both webs, above and below. The secondaries have only a 

 little white basally, chiefly on the inner web. The påle colour 

 of the tail-feathers is less buffish, more dusky or dirty whit- 

 ish, and occupies on the outer quills the whole, or almost the 

 whole of the inner web, so t hat the traces of a banded pat- 

 tern disappears, biit on the outer web there is a row of dark 

 more or less confluent dark sfots. 



The oldest of our young birds has already got a number 

 of black or black-spotted feathers on the upper side among 

 the brown ones. The feathers of the head and the upper neck 

 have now, unlike those of the younger birds, become pointed 

 and lanceolate as in the adult birds. Some of these pointed 

 feathers of the upper neck are black wdth light centres, but 

 black shafts. The upper tail-coverts are creamy white and, 

 very unlike those of the younger bird, provided with very 

 regular, rather narrow cross-bars measuring on the longest cov- 

 erts only about a fourth of the white interspaces. The feathers 

 of the lower neck are also pointed as in the old bird. The 

 whole of the lower side is rather påle brown, some feathers 

 with blackish margins, and all with apical and central white 

 spöts. The shafts are black, except at the tip. Inner wing- 

 coverts broadly tipped and spotted with buffish white. Lower 

 tail-coverts white with a few dusky bars. Central tail-feathers 

 dark brown with somewhat bronzy gloss. On the outer quills 

 a faint buffy colour appears on the inner and partly on the 

 outer web, but it does not extend to the apical fourth of the 

 feather. All tail-feathers tipped with white, on the outer also 

 a subapical spöt and remains of a subapical band may be 

 seen. 



A comparison of the pattern of the plumage of the young 

 I by eter carunculatus on one side with the plumage of the adult, 

 and on the other with the respective plumages of other repre- 

 sentatives of Polyborinae reveals that the plumage of the young 

 I by eter carunculatus exhibits several generalised features, 

 which disappear in the fully adult bird, but which are more 

 or less retained in other members of this subfamily. As such 

 a feature may in the first rank be counted the transversely 

 banded tail, a common pattern among the birds of prey, which 

 no doubt is a primitive character. As has been stat ed above 

 traces of such a banded pattern are to be seen in the young 

 /. carunculatus and can be foUowed for some time during the 



