The Zoologist— Jdnk, 1866. 057 



full adult dress by February, after almost three years of immaturity, 

 ilu^collectioi), crest spiouling, January). 



No. 18. Adult Dress, taken from a bird shot January mii, 1866 — 

 B.ll, upper mandibles blackish, at base tortoise-shell ; under mandibles 

 al tortoise-shell. Flesh under eye orange; at base of u^der man- 

 d.b es black, dotted with little warts of au orange colour. Eve intense 

 dark green. Feet grayish black. Head, neck, throat, back and rump 

 dark lustrous green. Shoulders, scapulars and wing-coverts dark 

 green; a band of velvet black borders end of feathers; a beautiful 

 golden lustre pervades the whole feather. . Under parts rich bronze- . 

 green. Tail and wing-quills black ; the outer filaments and also the 

 iarge scapulars and tertials glossed with bronze-green. On the head 

 IS a crest of recurved green-black feathers, abotU two inches high. In 

 this specimen they are well worn and not «ew. 



It is said that the shag loses the top-knot in winter and the end of 

 summer. The birds from which these observations have been made 

 nj.ist have been the young in third winter. That the crest is worn in 

 December I can state from experience : I cannot state now positively 

 that U IS not lost after the young are hatched. It is certaiulv lost in 

 autumn for a time, a new one coming by moult. The only difference 

 I can see in the adult dress in spring from that of winter is a number 

 of white hair-like feathers with a little tuft at tip, coming out in the 

 "eck m spring. They have seemingly been unobserved before 

 Adult dress never fades. 



This ends my account of the shag. I have determined this summer 

 It possible to procure all the summer plumages from the breeding- 

 stations ; I shall then be happy to show the stages I have written fo 

 any ornithologist who will give me a call. Other years I neglected 

 s^ub eel °'' ^'■"'"■''"^ '*'^S' ^" '"°^«^^''' being occupied on other . 



The next letter I write you on this family will be on the cormorant ; 

 o be followed by one on the Natural History of the brownheaded gull 

 {Lavas rzd,bu„dus), and an account of all its plumages, with some 

 questions about what is the masked gull [L. capistratus) . 



Dalkey, County Dublin, ^^^^'^ Blake-Knox. 



April, 1866. 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. I. q _ 



