256 AEDEID^. 



Achilt male. General colour above tawnj' yellow and black, the 

 latter colour predominating and occupying the centre of the feathers, 

 the sides of which are tawny buff, freckled and irregularly barred 

 with black; lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts pale tawny 

 buff, mottled with bars or cross-lines of dusky brown ; marginal 

 wing-coverts rufous, regularly barred across with black ; median 

 and greater coverts tawny buff, with irregular bars or arrow-shaped 

 markings of blackish brown, much less pronounced on the greater 

 coverts, all of which have a rufescent tinge near the base ; bastard- 

 wing, primary-coverts, and quills blackish, barred with rufous, the 

 bars somewhat broken up on the inner webs of the quills, which are 

 also paler; the inner secondaries like the scapulars, being tawny buff 

 on their edges and mottled in a similar manner ; tail-feathers tawny 

 buff, irregularly mottled with black bars or cross markings, more 

 pronounced on the middle of the feathers ; crown of head uniform 

 black, with a frill of erectile plumes on the nape, these being tipped 

 with tawny buff, and the pale tips crossed with lines of black ; 

 eyebrow, sides of face, and sides of neck tawny buff, the eyebrow 

 uniform except on the upper edge, where the feathers are barred 

 with black ; the ear-coverts scarcely marked at all, but the plumes 

 of the sides of the neck narrowly barred with black, and elongated 

 into a friU which covers the hind-neck, the latter being clothed in 

 dense down of a tawny-buff colour ; the feathers below the eye, 

 and a streak along the cheeks and down the sides of the neck, 

 black ; malar line of feathers and throat creamy white, with a 

 central line of reddish-buff feathers slightly mottled with black bases ; 

 the lower throat also creamy white, with four or five tolerably 

 defined broad lines of tawny buff and black mottled feathers ; the 

 lower part of the ruff on the fore-neck with narrow wavy lines of 

 black ; the breast covered with down of a tawny-buff colour, and 

 hidden by a large patch of loose plumes on each side of the chest, 

 which are mostly black with tawny-buff margins ; remainder of 

 under surface creamy white, streaked with black centres to the 

 feathers, the black markings slightly broken up with mottlings of 

 tawny buff; thighs and under tail-coverts with scarcely any 

 markings whatever ; under wing-coverts and axillaries tawny 

 buff, the former narrowly lined with blackish, the axillaries more 

 distinctly barred with dusky blackish : " bill greenish yellow ; legs 

 and feet yellowish green ; claws dark brown ; iris yellow ; bare 

 space before the eye yellowish green " (H. Seebohm). Total length 

 about 24 inches, culmen 2*75, wing 13, tail 4*-J:, tarsus 3"8. 



Two out of the three specimens collected by ilr. Eobert Bergman 

 at Yokohama are apparently young birds and have the primary- 

 coverts and quills almost uniform, with a certain amount of rufous 

 mottlings confined to the inner webs ; in this state of plumage 

 B. stellaris has a great resemblance to B. j^oed^ojitilKS, but ia 

 always to be distinguished from the last-named bird by the tawny- 

 coloured frill on the sides of the neck, instead of the smoky-brown 

 one peculiar to the Australian bird. 



