Notes on the Honey Buzzard. 52>1 



described it has alike spoken of it as a most variable species, 

 it does not appear that the nature of that variation of plumage 

 to which it is liable has ever been satisfactorily explained. I have 

 examined a considerable number of skins and stuffed specimens, 

 as many as seven or eight of which were British-killed : and 

 have found the difference observable among them to be suffi- 

 ciently intelligible, being reducible, over and above the regular 

 progressive changes to which the species is subject, to a mere 

 want of fixity, or definitiveness as regards extent, rather than of 

 constancy in the normal markings ; to a running or suffusion, 

 or, on the other hand, sometimes to a deficiency, of the 

 colouring matter. The following are its typical states of 

 plumage, with all the markings duly devoloped and defined : — 



Adult Male. In the finest specimen which I have seen, 

 the head, including the lores and ear-coverts, was of a dark 

 dull ash-colour ; upper plumage nearly uniform brown, dis- 

 tinctly tinged with cinereous, and having a fine reddish-purple 

 gloss when held to the light; the feathers white at base, 

 and little more than tipped with brown about the nape ; 

 throat white, with a dark line down the centre of each feather; 

 breast plumage broadly terminated with brown, which lower 

 forms upon each feather two or more distinct broad bars ; 

 tail whitish at base, with three broad bars of dark brown, one 

 near the tip, and terminated with white; between the bars 

 were numerous dark, wavy, transverse lines. 



Adult Female. Some are said to have the forehead bluish- 

 grey ; but this I have not seen. A beautiful specimen, killed 

 not far from London, had all the upper parts deep chocolate- 

 brown, with the base of the feathers on the head and neck very 

 pure white, which appeared conspicuously about the nape, as 

 in most other Falconidag ; lower plumage with distinct, large, 

 transverse bars ; quills and tail marked as in the male. 



Immature Dress. An example, in what may be deemed its 

 characteristic plumage at this age, with the markings more 

 than usually distinct, had the forehead dull white; the crown 

 of the head and neck brown, tipped with whitish, with a dark 

 line along the shaft of each feather; lores, and streak passing 

 through the eye, dark chocolate-brown ; scapularies uniform 

 clove-brown ; smallest wing-coverts edged with a paler tint ; 

 outer primaries dark brown ; the remainder barred with diffe- 

 rent shades of the same ; secondaries and tertiaries tipped 

 with white ; the tail barred with different shades of brown, 

 and tipped with whitish ; throat reddish- white, with a defined 

 dark streak along the middle of each feather : this gradually 

 becomes more diffused till, on the breast, the fecithers appear 

 almost uniform brown. Under parts whitish, longitudinally 



Vol. I. — No. 10. n. s. r r 



