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what more rufous in its tints; the eastern form, apparently not 
going further west than Kumaon, and most plentiful at Dar- 
jeeling ; with toes quite bare or only just overhung at their 
feathers exceed shortest, which are the exterior ones, by 0°2. Tarsus, which is 
densely and fully feathered, 1'4 to 15. Mid toe to root of claw, 0°95 to 1; 
its claw straight, 0°5 ; hind toe, 0°5; its claw straight, 0°4; inner toe, 0°8 
to 0°9; its claw straight, 0°55. Bill straight, from edge of cere, 0°6 to 0°7 ; 
from gape, 1:0 to 1:05; height at front, at margin of cere, 0°35 to 039 ; 
length of cere, 0°3. Lower tail coverts fall short of end of tail by 15. 
Description. The feet, in some greenish horny, in some yellowish fleshy ; 
bill, yellowish horny, brown at tip and on side of upper mandible, and edge 
of lower mandible. 
Plumage. The forehead, a broad streak over the eye running down the 
interior web of the aigrettes, feathers under the eye and most of the ear 
coverts, loral bristles and chin, white, with a greyish or yellowish tinge, most 
of the feathers tipped and some imperfectly barred with dark brown. The 
ear coverts in most specimens, much suifused with rufous, and the longest of 
them broadly tipped with a deep umber brown, which tippings form a con- 
tinuation of the ruff band. The whole of the top of the head, and back of the 
neck, and the exterior webs of the aigrettes, back, scapulars, tertiaries, lesser 
wing coverts, rump, aud upper tail coverts with a rufous fawn, or in some 
buffy yellow ground colour, everywhere (except on the outer webs of the 
outer scapulars, and in a broad irregular half collar at the base of the neck,) 
very closely and finely freckled, or irregularly barred, with minute, zig-zag 
lines of dark brown. Many of the feathers, specially of the head and aigrettes, 
with large, deep brown blotches, or irregular stripes or spots towards the 
tips, confined in the aigrettes to the outer webs. In some specimens 
these dark brown spots are peculiarly conspicuous on the tips of the compa- 
ratively unmarked feathers, which form the irregular half collar already 
referred to. The outer webs of the quills have the same ground colour, but 
as usual, palest on the first few primaries, with five or six broad, irregular, 
mottled and imperfect, transverse, brown bars, which are continued as perfect 
bars, on to the inner webs, where the interspaces are much mottled, and 
instead of having the clear fawn colored or buffy tint of the outer webs, are 
much suifused with brown, and towards the bases become almost obsolete. 
The outer webs of the secondaries also, have the buffy portions much freckled 
and mottled with brown. The tail might perhaps be best described as 
brown, with five or six imperfect and irregular, transverse, rufous fawn bars. 
The interspaces much freckled with the same color; the brown predomina- 
ting at the bases, the rufous fawn towards the tips. The throat and feathers 
of the ruff are white, suffused with rufous fawn towards the tips, those of the 
throat with two or three, very narrow, transverse, brown bars towards the 
end, and those of the ruff broadly blotched at the tips with deep brown, The 
breast and the abdomen, are white, pale yellowish, or rufous white, closely 
but irregularly barred, with delicate, wavy, brown lines, and many of the fea- 
thers with irregular, dark brown, shaft stripes or lengthened blotches. The 
vent feathers and lower tail coverts are white with, in most specimens, one 
or more imperfect bars, at the tip. The tibial and tarsal plumes are similar, 
but the former are generally much more rufous, and the latter more purely 
white than the ground color of the breast, and the markings, always coarser 
than those of that part, are, in some specimens, close and regular, in others 
mere spots. 
