476 THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 
2’-0 to 2-1; bill at front from margin of feathers, 1'"6 to 1-75; 
weight 4 to 5 ounces. 
In all, the bill, legs, feet, were black ; the irides, deep brown. 
In the winter plumage the entire under surface is pure white, 
and wants altogether the delicate grey shade on the lower 
surface. There is a small dark spot in front of the eye, but 
the eye stripe, through the lores, is either wanting or only 
faintly indicated by a dusky speckling. The entire forehead 
is white; the crown is white or faintly greyish white; the 
feathers with central blackish specks, spots, or stripes. In some 
specimens, these are excessively small, mere specks; in others, 
they form conspicuous centres to the feathers. The feathers 
of the occiput are somewhat similar, but they may be more 
properly described as black, more or less broadly bordered with 
white. 
At the base of the occiput is a dull black collar extending 
on either side round the occiput nearly to the eye ; below this, 
the back of the neck is mingled white and pale smoky grey ; the 
feathers being white at their bases and smoky grey towards 
their tips. The rest of the upper plumage is much as in the 
summer plumage, but the brown is not so pure a color, there 
is much less, often, no white, on the outer tail feathers and the 
scapulars and in the secapulary region, and often the upper tail 
coverts are broadly or narrowly margined or fringed at the tips 
with white. The amount of this fringing or tipping varies in 
every individual. 
In the young birds, killed at the same period, the nuchal 
collar is a sort of wood-brown, and so are the scapulars, greater, 
and median coverts, tertiaries and secondaries, there is not a 
trace of white anywhere on the outer web of the exterior tail 
feather, and both on the rump and upper tail coverts, the brown, 
is more of a dull earthy brown, and less of a grey smoky 
brown than in the adult in winter plumage. 
When, as already mentioned (supra. p. 420,) I visited the Vin- 
gorla rocks, on the 4th February 1875, I found all the higher 
parts more or less thickly clothed with coarse dry shaggy grass, 
which sprouted out of every nook and cranny, and had, more- 
over, established itself over every little plateau or tiny table 
ground where the decay of the rock, and the Guano of the 
numerous sea birds that frequent these rocks at the breeding 
season had spread a thin sheet of mould. 
Everywherein amongst this grass, were thousands of addled and 
rotten eggs, mostly broken and weather beaten, but avery few of 
thesmaller of the two kinds, retaining their original colours 
tolerably well. What species the large eggs belonged to I cannot 
guess, there were very few of them, and all were much broken. 
