116 SPARROW-HAWK. 
brown. The wings expand to about the width of two feet 
four, or two feet five inches; underneath they are pale grey, 
more or less tinged with rusty red, and barred with dark 
brown; under wing coverts, light red, barred with dusky brown, 
primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries, greyish black, obscurely 
barred on the outer webs with dark brown, and spotted with 
two or more large yellowish white spots on the inner webs 
in the intervals, excepting towards the tips; greater and lesser 
under wing coverts, as the breast, but the bars are broader. 
The tail, which is brown, has four darker bars of the same 
on the middle feathers, and five on the side ones; their edge 
is better defined on the lower than on the upper side; tip, 
whitish; under tail coverts, white, with a few dark markings 
on the outer ones, as on the breast, but broader; legs and 
toes, yellow; claws, black. 
The young are at first covered with white or greyish white 
down—even in the nest the females are distinguishable by their 
superior size. When fledged, the bill is dusky brown at the 
tip, and bluish at the base; cere, greenish yellow; iris, light 
brown. Head and neck, reddish brown, with some partly white 
feathers on the back of the latter; the middle of each feather 
being dark greyish brown; breast, reddish white, with large 
oblong spots of a dark brown colour; the middle of each 
feather being of that colour, transversely barred with yellowish 
red or light rust-colour—the bars becoming by degrees narrower 
and brighter. Back, reddish brown; legs and toes, greenish 
yellow, tinged with blue. Wings and tail, dark reddish brown, 
then bluish grey, which becomes more pure as the bird advances 
in age; the tail has three dark brown bands. The female is 
larger: she also has the partly white feathers on the back of 
the head; the breast is whiter than in the male, and the 
marking on it larger; the upper parts browner. I have recently 
seen in the admirably well-preserved collection of Mr. Chaffey, 
of Dodington, Kent, a most remarkable variety of this bird 
—a male, the whole plumage as white as snow. 
