COMMON STILT. 



83 



between summer and winter plumage ; but in not quite adult birds of 

 both sexes (and by far the greater majority of breeding-birds are in this 

 plumage) the hind head and the back of the neck are more or less mixed 

 with dull black feathers in summer, which are moulted into brown feathers 

 in autumn. There does not seem to be any evidence that the spring 

 moult extends beyond the head and neck. In young in first phimage the 

 small feathers, which are glossy black in the adult, are dark brown with 

 pale edges ; the primaries are dull black, and the innermost ones are 

 narrowly margined with white ; the wing-coverts have pale tips, and the 

 secondaries broad white tips ; the hind head and neck are greyish brown, 

 darkest on the former, with buff margins to the feathers ; the legs and feet 

 are brownish yellow. In birds of the year the buff margins to the 

 feathers of the head and back and the pale tips of the wing-coverts 

 have almost disappeared. After the first spring moult the nearly adult 

 plumage is assumed, but the brown back is retained until the following 

 autumn. Young in down have the upper parts greyish buff mottled with 

 black and the underparts white. 



