YELLOW-HAMMER. 41 



broadly margined with rich chesnut brown and olive; pri- 

 maries, dusky black, with a narrow outside edge of yellow; 

 the first four nearly equal in length, but the first, or according 

 to Macgillivray, the third, rather the longest, the fourth a 

 little shorter than the third, and the fifth a quarter of an 

 inch shorter than the fourth; secondaries and tertiaries, dusky 

 black, broadly margined with rich chesnut brown and olive; 

 greater and lesser under wing coverts, yellow. The tail is 

 slightly forked, having the two middle feathers shorter than 

 the rest, and dusky black, edged with reddish brown and 

 tinged with yellow; the next three feathers on each side are 

 dusky black edged with olive, and the two outer ones on 

 each side have a broad patch of white in a slanting direction 

 on the inner web, the rest of the feather pale brown, and 

 the outer margin yellowish white; underneath, the tail is 

 grey; upper tail coverts, reddish brown, the feathers edged 

 with yellow. Legs, toes, and claws, light yellowish brown, 

 with a tinge of red. 



The female is in general much duller in colour; length, 

 not quite seven inches; the head has much less yellow than 

 in the male, that colour being nearly confined to the fore 

 part of it; the neck in front assumes a tinge of dull green; 

 the breast has the yellow much more obscured, and is merely 

 streaked on the sides and front with yellowish red; back, on 

 the lower part, lighter than in the male. The wings expand 

 to the width of ten inches and three quarters; primaries, 

 secondaries, and tertiaries, paler than in the male. The white 

 spots on the side feathers of the tail are smaller in size than 

 in the male bird, and the whole of the tail is of a lighter 

 tint. 



The young, when first fledged, are dull yellowish brown, 

 streaked with black above, yellowish grey beneath, the breast 

 and sides streaked with brown. The head does not assume 

 the yellow until after the first autumnal moult, and is patched 

 with dusky black, each feather having a streak of that 

 colour the older the bird the more is the j^ellow diffused, 

 and less interrupted with the dusky streaks, as also deeper 

 in tint; the sides of the head are yellowish grey. Neck on 

 the sides, yellowish grey, on the lower part in front dull 

 yellowish brown streaked with dusky; throat, yellow; breast, 

 dull yellowish streaked with dusky. The streaks on the back 

 are much broader than in the adult, and the red on its 

 lower part is less pure, most of the feathers being streaked 



