154 Contributions to the Ornithology of India, Sfc. 



the rufous margins wear away, leaving only a pale trace ; then 

 the bird moults^ and the new feathers are a dark brown with a 

 bluish slatey bloom on them, and the rufous margins of the 

 feathers are much broader, purer, and more conspicuous than in 

 the youngest stage ; the primaries in many cases now show a 

 few fulvous or rufous white spots on the outer webs towards their 

 bases, and the white bars of the inner webs begin to become 

 confluent towards the margin of the feathers. Then, as the birds 

 get still older, the brown fades to a great extent out of the cen- 

 tral portions of the feathers, the rufous margins grow broader 

 and paler, and the whole mantle assumes a sort of " desert^^ tint. 

 The central portions of the feathers still remain a sort of rufous 

 grey, but this is concealed to a great extent in many places by 

 the overlapping of the feathers ; on the inner webs of the pri- 

 maries, the white bars become altogether confluent on the mar- 

 ginal half, and the quills, which in the early stages, when the 

 general tint of the under parts is brown, are only faintly mar- 

 gined paler, become gradually, conspicuously tipped, and mar- 

 gined towards the tips, with somewhat rufescent white. 



I should note that, at all stages before the bird becomes per- 

 fectly adult, some individuals exhibit a greater or less amount 

 of imperfect barring, or spotting with pale rufous on the whole 

 of the lower part of the mantle. This does not appear to depend 

 on age or sex ; it is never seen in the quite young birds, nor in 

 the perfect adult ; it is only in the intermediate stages, and two 

 birds precisely resembling each other in every other respect may 

 be met with, in one of which the spottings or transverse barrings 

 will be conspicuous, while in the other, there will scarcely be a 

 trace of such markings. The only thing I notice is, that where 

 there are no spottings on the outer webiS of the primaries, then 

 there is none on the mantle, and where there is a good deal of 

 the one, there is generally a good deal of the other. 



It is, however, the tail of this bird which constitutes the or- 

 nithologist's greatest trial ; the tail really appears to be governed 

 by no sort of rules, and to get through its changes quite inde- 

 pendent of the other changes of plumage already described. In 

 the quite young bird the two central feathers are absolutely un- 

 spotted, hair-brown, only faintly paler margined towards the 

 tips ', the next two feathers on either side have one or two small 

 pale rufous spots on the outer webs towards the tip, and about 

 six similar but larger spots on the inner webs ; the next two are 

 similar but have three spots on the outer web, while the exterior 

 of all has only a trace of one spot on the margin of the outer 

 web, the inner web being as in the others. All the laterals are 

 tipped for about a quarter of an inch with dull white. In the 



