200 BUTEO LAGOPUS. 



coloured birds are tliose in their first or nestling plumage ; or 

 they may. on a more minute examination, and on being kept 

 some years in captivity, turn out to be of a different species. 



The birds alluded to above are as follows : — Bill bluish- 

 black ; cere and basal margins orange ; feet orange ; iris 

 hazel, superciliary ridge dull green ; general colour of the 

 plumage blackish-brown or chocolate-brown ; the inner webs 

 of the quills, the nape under the surface, and the forehead, 

 wdiite ; the feathers of the legs barred with reddish ; the tail 

 deep black, with five narrow white bands, and tipped with 

 brownish-white. A male in this state in INIr Audubon's col- 

 lection had " the general colour of the plumage deep blackish- 

 brown ; the forehead and a large patch on the hind-neck white, 

 streaked with blackish-brown ; all the feathers of the back, 

 the scapulars, the wing-coverts, the quills, and the tail-feathers, 

 are white toward the base, and more or less barred with whitish, 

 or light grey, or pale brown ; in consequence of wdiich the 

 upper parts are obscurely mottled ; the axillar feathers, some 

 of those on the sides, and some of the tibial feathers, with the 

 lower tail-coverts, are similarly marked ; the white forms a 

 conspicuous patch on the under surface of the wing, as it occu- 

 pies the greater part of the primaries as well as part of the 

 inner webs of the secondaries ; the tail brownish-black, barred 

 with greyish- white, tinged with brown, there being on the mid- 

 dle feathers six of these black bands, the last very broad, the 

 tips brownish- white. 



If these really belong to this species, we might suppose 

 that the young, at first of a nearly uniform dark brown, but 

 with the bases of all the feathers white, gradually become 

 lighter, the brown colour contracting so that the edges of 

 the feathers become white or yellowish until the brown is re- 

 duced to mere streaks on the head and neck. The tail, at first 

 banded with blackish-brown and white, ultimately becomes 

 brown, the basal part being white at all ages ; or, in other 

 words, the bands, at first numerous, are ultimately reduced to 

 one ; as is the case with Butco borealis, Falco sparverius, and 

 F. Tinnunculus, and to a less extent with Buteo pennsylvani- 

 cus, in which the young has seven dusky bars, while the adult 

 has only three. 



