172 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
smaller than the males; and with regard to their 
plumage both very light and very dark varieties are 
observable amongst them, the former having the double 
line of markings down the front of the throat and 
neck, of a light reddish tint, the latter of a uniform 
dark brown, but the remainder of the plumage does not 
necessarily partake of the same hue. When freshly 
killed I have noticed a beautiful purplish bloom, as in 
old herons, on the feathers of the head and back, and 
the colour of the cere is then extremely vivid. I never 
remember to have observed the double iris in this 
species, described by Pennant, but Messrs. Sheppard 
and Whitear remark, “in one which we examined that 
[iris] near the pupil was reddish-yellow, the outer one 
hazel.” 
On the 7th of March, 1862, I examined two fine 
birds, which had been killed at a right-and-left shot, 
at Hickling, as they rose from the same tussocky mound, 
and from their thus lying together I expected to find 
them male and female. On dissection, however, they 
proved to be both males. These were in full adult 
plumage with a rich bloom on the feathers, and the 
markings of the throat in each of them was of a lght 
reddish tint, with the upper portions of the plumage 
somewhat darker. They were about the same size, 
but one had the cere of a beautiful pink, whilst in 
the other the same parts were of the ordinary bluish 
horn colour. In the first the testes were extraordi- 
narily developed, being an inch and three-quarters in 
length, and the whole breast and stomach was covered 
with perfect layers of fat. The other, in equally good 
condition, had much smaller testes, scarcely two-thirds 
of the former measurement; and in a third example, 
killed about the same time, they were scarcely five- 
eighths of an inch long. In the stomachs of these birds 
I found the remains of several eels, one nearly perfect, 
