236 Contnhidions to the Ornithology of Inaia, SfC. 



Males, length, 14"5 to 14-8 ; expanse, 27 to 27-75 ; tail from 

 vent, 2-7 to 3-3 ; wing-, 7'8 to 8-4 ; tarsus^ 2; bill at front, 2-8 

 to 3-1 ; weight, S'l ozs., 



Female, length, 15-75 ; expanse, 28 ; tarsus, 2 ; tail, 3; wing, 

 8*4 ; bill at front, 3-65 ; weight, 9 ozs. 



The legs and feet are black, in some dusky plumbeous ; irides, 

 brown ; the bill pinkish, for about the basal half, black or dusky 

 on the terminal half. 



In the winter plumage, there is a broad indistinct white 

 superciliary band, and the feathers immediately below the eye 

 are also white ; the chin and throat are pure white ; the forehead, 

 the whole top, back, and sides of the head, and the neck all 

 round, brownish white, closely streaked with darker brown, the 

 streaks very minute on the cheeks and sides of the head, some- 

 what larger on the front of the neck, and darker and stronger 

 on the head and back of the neck, where but little of the white 

 nemailis visible. The upper back, pale earthy brown, each feather 

 with a narrow dark brown central shaft stripe and mostly mar- 

 gined somewhat paler. The breast, pale greyish brown, more or 

 less obscured by the albescent tippings to the feathers, and some 

 of the feathers with, inconsYjic\ious darker shafts; the feathers 

 of the central portion of the breast, if raised, will be found to 

 be not merely tipped whitish, but to be also obscurely barred 

 with white. The abdomen, vent, and lower tail coverts are pure 

 white, as are also the axillaries and wing lining ; the rump is 

 white with a few cuneiform or heart-shaped blackish brown 

 spots ; the upper tail coverts white, with narrow irregular arrow- 

 head bars; the tail feathers grey brown, with dark shafts tipped 

 white, and mottled with white on the inner webs of the exterior 

 ones, in some with traces of darker transverse bars. The pri- 

 maries and their greater coverts, black ; the shafts of the first 

 two or three, white, subsequent ones, brownish white ; the scapu- 

 lars and tertiaries, pale brown, darker shafted, margined paler, and 

 many of them more or less tinged with ashy; the lesser and 

 m.edian coverts like the scapulars, but margined whitish ; the 

 siecondaries brown, paler on the inner webs, and margined on 

 both webs and on the tips with white, as indeed are also, so far 

 as the tips ai-e concerned,, the later primaries, though less con- 

 spicuously so ; the greater secondary coverts a more ashy brown, 

 narrowly margined with white. In one specimen which appears 

 to be further advanced, the lateral tail feathers are distinctly 

 barred blackish brown and white ; the cuneiform barrings on the 

 rump and upper tail coverts are more marked; the axillaries 

 are all strongly barred ; the feathers of the sides and flanks and 

 also the lower tail coverts exhibit numerous arrow-head bars ; 



