VOL. vii] PLUMAGES OF THE EIDER. 71 



delay or advance of several months, according to the 

 condition or early hatching of the bird. All birds 

 described are, for the sake of explanation, supposed to 

 have been hatched on July 1st. 



MALE. 



Down-plumage. — Crown, cheeks, wings, hack, and rump 

 brown with long hair-like down of brownish-grey on shoulders 

 and wings (over the whole of the hack there is an olive-green 

 tinge which soon vanishes), darker towards the rump and 

 tail ; eye-stripe, chin, hreast, and helly grey, grey-yellow, or 

 very pale brown ; neck brownish-grey ; thighs brown. Bill 

 blue-grey ; nail bone-yellow ; feet blue-grey ; irides brown. 

 Length at four days, 9 inches. 



Juvenile-plumage. — At four weeks, feathers appear 

 on the shoulders, and the legs and feet become lead-blue 

 and grow to a large size. The irides too become more 

 red-brown. By August 12th the young are three-parts 

 grown, and by September 1st they are clothed in their 

 first plumage and are able to fly. It is generally stated 

 that the young at first resemble the adult female, but 

 this is hardly the case on close examination. 



Head and neck grey with dark brown centres to the 

 feathers ; eye-stripe light grey with dark bro^\'n centres ; 

 nape, shoulders, scapulars blackish-bro\\'n with narrow 

 sandy edges ; rump bro^^'n-black ; upper tail-coverts black 

 edged with reddish-brown ; centre of the wing blackish- 

 brown edged with sandy-brown ; primaries browTi ; secondaries 

 grey-broun edged with pale sandy -brown ; throat grey ; 

 chest and lower-parts blackish-bro^^TL with sandy edges to the 

 feathers (in some examples the lower-helly and vent are a 

 uniform grey -brown, whilst others are almost black with 

 the feathers edged with sandy-bro^Mi) ; thighs reddish-brown 

 and barred with black -bro^^'n. Feet and toes lead-grey ; 

 hill green above, running into blue-grey below and in front 

 of the nostrils. 



First Winter-plumage. — There is little change 

 until the middle of October* when a very general moult 

 commences through the plumage except on the mantle, 

 wings, lower-breast and belly, and rump — these portions 



* Sometimes a few white feathers come into the scapulars as early 

 as September. 



