672 LARID^. 



tip ; irides brown ; head from the base of the bill to the nape, 

 of a deep blackish -brown ; chin white ; the acuminate feathers 

 of the neck white, tinged with golden-yellow, sometimes 

 extending so as to form a complete circlet ; mantle, wings, 

 and tail dark brown ; the two central tail-feathers extending 

 four inches beyond the others, and twisted vertically ; shafts 

 of the primaries white ; underparts white in very old birds, 

 and with more or less of a striated brown chest-band in 

 others ; under wing-coverts, lower abdomen and under tail- 

 coverts dark brown ; legs and feet black. The whole length 

 twenty-one inches ; wing from the anterior bend fourteen 

 inches and a quarter. 



In less mature birds the underparts are more or less 

 striated ; and examples have been obtained of a nearly 

 uniform sooty-brown, with a yellow tint on the acuminate 

 feathers of the neck, showing that they could not be very 

 young birds. Mr. E. Booth, who kept one of these melanic 

 forms alive for some time, has informed the Editor that it 

 gradually became white on its underparts ; but little is at 

 present definitely known of the progressive stages of plumage 

 in this species, or of the age at which it commences to breed. 

 There is no external difference between the sexes. 



In the young bird, from which the second figure is taken, 

 the cere and base of the bill are greenish-brown, the curved 

 point black ; the irides very dark brown ; feathers of the 

 head and neck clove-brown, with narrow margins of wood- 

 brown ; back, scapulars, tertials, and upper tail- coverts 

 umber-brown, each feather margined with wood- brown, these 

 margins being broadest on the tertials, the lower part of the 

 back, and the upper tail-coverts ; great wing-coverts nearly 

 uniform umber-brown ; wing-primaries blackish-brown, the 

 shafts of these feathers and a considerable portion of the 

 inner webs white ; tail-feathers umber-brown, the two 

 middle tail-feathers in this young bird not more than half an 

 inch longer than the next feather on each side ; chin, throat, 

 breast, belly, and vent mottled with buff-coloured brown, 

 produced by narrow alternate transverse lines of clove-brown, 

 and wood-brown ; under tail-coverts broadly barred across 



