THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 475 
I do not find it anywhere noticed that the winter and sum- 
mer plumage of this species is very distinct. In fact, as far as 
I can make out, the winter plumage is generally described as 
that of the young. Generally also the descriptions that I have 
seen are not wholly satisfactory. Dr. Jerdon’s, I am afraid, I 
must call eminently unsatisfactory and he is quite wrong as to 
the colors of the soft parts. 
He says :—* Bill, dusky reddish, red towards the base of the 
lower mandible ; legs, coral red.”” As a matter of fact, alike in 
summer and winter plumage, the bill, legs, feet, claws, and 
webs, are all black. 
The birds are in full breeding plumage in May. I will des- 
cribe a specimen caught at Sea, some 60 miles north of Madras, 
on the 7th May. 
¢ Length to end of outer tail feather, 14"°75 ; expanse, 29"-0 ; 
tail from vent, 7-0; wing, 9-62; tarsus, 0°75; bill from gape, 
1”-95; at front from margin of feathers, 1'"6 ; mid toe and claw, 
1"-15; bill, legs, and feet, black ; irides, deep brown. 
A frontal band, about 0-17 broad, extending backwards over 
the eyes for about (15 behind the posterior angle of the 
eye, pure white. A broad black stripe through the lores to 
eyes and behind the eyes joining the black of the occiput ; 
the forehead and crown inside the white band, the entire 
occiput and nape, velvet black, not. fuscous black as Finsch and 
Hautlaub and Heuglin and others give it. The entire chin, 
throat, cheeks, and sides of the neck, wing-lining, axillaries, 
lower tail coverts, and edge of the wing along the carpal joint 
and along the ulna, pure white ; breast, abdomen, and flanks, white, 
delicately shaded with pale French grey ; back of the neck, white, 
shaded delicately witn grey; back, wings, tail, a smoky ‘or 
sooty brown; the upper back, strongly shaded with bluish grey, 
as are also some of the tail feathers; the lesser coverts along 
the ulna, just inside the white edga, blackish brown; the 
primaries, a darker brown; their shafts, brown on the upper 
surface ; the outer web of the first primary, almost black; the 
primaries greyish white, on theirinner webs, towards their bases ; 
the outer and longest tail feather, white for the basal half on 
both webs, greyish brown on the inner web for the terminal 
half, and with a corresponding greyish brown streak along the 
shaft on the outer web. 
The other tail feathers greyish white on the inner webs at 
their bases. There is more or less of a slaty grey shade on the 
tail feathers and the longer scapulars. 
In the winter plumage a number of males varied as follows :— 
Length, 13-4 to 15 ; expanse, 30/0 to 30'°5 ; tail, 5-0 to6’"2 ; 
wing, 94 to 99; tarsus, 08 to 0'°85; bill from gape, 
