BLUE-HEADED QUAKETAIL. 211 



is just commencing, has all the upper parts light greyish-brown, 

 with scarcely the least tinge of yellow ; the lower parts dull 

 white, with only a patch of yellow on the fore-neck, and an- 

 other on the abdomen. This individual shews that greyish- 

 brown and white are the colours, when the feathers have been 

 worn, and their tints faded. A Scottish female of the next 

 sjoecies in this state, can scarcely be distinguished. When the 

 moult is completed, however, the feathers are margined with 

 greenish-yellow, and the quills and their coverts, together with 

 the first row of small coverts are conspicuously edged with 

 yellowish- white, the lower parts bright yellow. 



Remarks. — The differences between this and the next 

 species are so slight that some suspicion of their identity 

 might be entertained. It is impossible to distinguish the fe- 

 males in some states, and I have shot individuals of the latter 

 in which the head was nearly bluish-grey, and the line over 

 the eye almost white. Yet it does not appear that specimens 

 of it have been met with having the upper part of the head 

 and neck of that pure leaden grey seen in continental specimens 

 of the present species. 



Mr Yarrell states that " the first British specimen of this 

 bird, obtained in October 1834 on Walton Cliffs, near Colchester, 

 was shot by Mr Henry Doubleday." It is mentioned in the 

 first volume of the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, that " an 

 adult male was killed by Mr Hoy in the parish of Stoke Nay- 

 land (erroneously printed Maryland), Suffolk, on the 2d of May 

 1836 ;" and that another " male was shot a little west of New- 

 castle on the 1st" of the same month. Another " fine male in 

 his full summer dress was taken in April 1837 near Finsbury, 

 a short distance north-east of London," and is represented in 

 Mr Yarreirs History of British Birds. 



