220 LA.EID.E. 



Adult in breeding-plumage. Head, nape, and throat down to the 

 upper breast deep black ; eyelids and hind neck white ; mantle deep 

 slate-colour ; wing-coverts and long secondaries rather darker ; 

 principal secondaries with blackish centres, and broad white edges 

 which form a conspicuous alar band ; primaries chiefly sooty black, 

 the oth and upwards tipped with white, which increases slightly on 

 the innermost ; tail-feathers white, with a greyish tinge at the base 

 of the central pairs ; abdomen and lower breast white ; flanks and 

 sides of the breast slate-grey ; under wing dark slate-colour : iris 

 white : bill long and slender, reddish orange to the angle, then 

 blackish ; tarsi and toes yellowish. Total length 15-6 inches, 

 culmen 2, wing 12-3, tail 4-75, tarsus 1-75, middle toe with claw 

 1-6. The sexes appear to be alike in size. 



Adult in ivinter. I am not acquainted with any characteristic phase. 

 During the moult the head is probably mottled, through the con- 

 trast of the old worn feathers and the new ones ; but the hood 

 never seems to be lost. 



Young. Head and neck ash-brown, flecked with dull white ; chin 

 and throat white, the latter streaked with brown ; upper surface 

 and a band across the breast dark ash-brown ; wing-coverts mottled 

 with clove-brown ; secondaries dark brown, edged with white ; 

 primaries umber-brown, the inner ones with paler tips ; tail-coverts 

 white ; rectrices umber-brown, the two outer pairs mottled with 

 greyish ; abdomen white, flanks greyish ; under wing dark brown : 

 bill horn-colour, black terminally ; tarsi and toes ochraceous. 



Immature. Greyer above, with a gradual increase of white in the 

 tail-feathers until the umber-brown therein becomes a subterminal 

 band, and, after clinging to the shaft till reduced to mere spots, 

 finally disappears ; a black hood is gradually assumed, and is often 

 perfected before the tail-feathers have lost their spots. 



Hah. Red Sea, from Koseir southward, and the coasts of the Gulf 

 of Aden. Lower Egypt, the Greek Archipelago and Sicily, according 

 to writers who were either misinformed as to the locality of capture, 

 or (in the majority of instances) confused this species with L. ine- 

 lanocephalus, which has also conspicuous white eyelids. I have 

 examined an example said to have been obtained at Nice, but its 

 history was not satisfactory. According to Salvador! and Gigiioli, 

 a specimen was procured at the Maldive Islands : an enormous 

 extension of range, if the identification is correct. 



a. Ad. St. Abyssinian coast (Riippell). Frankfort Mus. 



b. Ad. sk. Annesley Bay, Abyssinia, June W. T. Blanford [C.]. 



18G8. 

 c-e. cS 2 ^^-y Zoulla, Annesley Bay, Abys- Tweeddale Coll. 



imm., et juv. sinia, June ( W. Jesse). 



sk. 

 f-k. Ad., inim., Zoulla, Annesley Bay, Abys- H. Saunders Coll. 



et juv. sk. sinia, June ( W. Jesse). 



