The Zoologist— March, 1871. 2503 



The great predominance of adult birds, amongst the specimens 

 procured, still further marks the accidental character of their 

 visitation, the proportion being-amongst such as I can speak of 

 with cerlaintj-six immature to twenty-nine fully adult; but it is 

 difficult to account for the great predominance of males, as proved 

 by dissection, the females presenting about the same proportion in 

 numbers to the males, as the young to the old. In plumage the 

 young exhibited the usual variations, from the mottled plumage of 

 the bird of the year, with its brown head and collar, the gray of the 

 back sprinkled with brown, and the dark primaries but sparingly 

 relieved with white, to that more mature and interesting stage 

 vvhen the head and back have assumed the gray tints of the adult 

 plumage, and the gray and white are gradually extending to the 

 secondaries and primaries. In this stage, however, each wing is 

 barred with brown as in the young kittiwake, and the tail is still 

 broadly t.pped with the same colour. The old birds, one and all 

 presented the exquisite contrast of gray and white that marks the 

 winter dress of this species in both sexes, the crown and back part 

 of the head smoke-gray, with a dark spot below each ear-covert: 

 the sides of the neck and breast, back and upper surface of the 

 wings pure French gray, relieved by a white margin to the tips of 

 the primary and secondary quills. The under surface of the win^s 

 dark slate-gray, showing the same white edging, and the tail and 

 undei parts, generally, pure white, with the breast and vent in most 

 specimens, when freshly killed, suffused with a lovely tint of rose- 

 co our. But one bird out of all I examined in this gray plumage 

 ex liib, ed the slightest variation from these general f 'atiues of I 



kid t'V , ^^^'^■V"'*""^ ^ '^™^'^' ^" '^y -- -"-tion, 

 showi '\,^7'^'^^'^"S'^' -'^^ Pl"»^age is particularly interesting a 

 showH.g he ast trace of immaturity in the primary quills. Each 

 o these feathers, though broadly tipped with white! has a patch of 

 black of more or less extent, forming, with the wing closed, three 

 alternate bands of black and white towards the extremity 'of th 

 feathers; but in this transition state the gradual encroachment of 

 the pale gray, and absorption, as it were, of the dark patches, by an 

 actual change of colour in the feathers, and not by moultin. is 

 very remarkable-a process, moreover, which is clearly perceptTble 

 in far less mature specimens. The tail-feathers in this bird are 

 pure white, but the feet and legs were somewhat less vivid in 

 colour than in other adult specimens. 



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