Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue o/Accipitres. 151 



from these^ I believe that in tbe first or nestling plumage the 

 two species cannot be distinguished from each other; and I 

 also feel persuaded that this plumage is common to both 

 sexesj though I have not been able to obtain actual proof 

 from dissected specimens of such being the fact. 



In the case of E. vespertinus, the first plumage is not 

 alluded to in Mr. Sharpens volume ; but a detailed description 

 of it^ taken from a young male obtained, by the late Mr. 

 Andersson in Damara Laud on the 14th of November^ will 

 be found in Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser^s article on this 

 species in the 'Birds of Europe/ under the head of "specimen 

 no. 4<j" This stage of plumage is figured as that of the young 

 male by Naumann,, in his ' A^ogel Deutschlands/ vol. i. pi. 28. 

 fig. 3. 



The second plumage, considerably resembling that of the 

 adult female, is described in Mr. Sharpe's volume under the 

 title of " young. '^ It is also represented in the lowest figure 

 of the plate of this species given by Messrs. Sharpe and 

 Dresser in the ' Birds of Europe/ the original of this figure 

 being a young female killed at Malta on the 9th of May, 

 which, in my opinion, was a bird hatched in the spring 

 of the preceding year. As the young females advance in 

 age they lose the dark shaft-marks on the head and under- 

 parts which are characteristic of this stage ; but even after 

 these marks have left the breast and adjacent parts, the 

 rufous of the undersurftice remains for a time decidedly paler 

 than it is in the old females. The second plumage is un- 

 doubtedly common to both sexes, as male birds Avhicli have 

 been killed whilst in course of change from this to the adult 

 male dress are frequent in collections : one such is pre- 

 served in the Norwich Museum, in which a few feathers of 

 even the first plumage still remain near the centre of the 

 breast, thus exhibiting the first, second, and third plumages 

 simultaneously existing, but with the third largely pre- 

 dominating, and with more remains of the second than of 

 the first. 



The adult plumages of the male and female in both species 

 of Erythropus are fully described in Mr. Sharpe''s volume; 



