510 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
I got them. And as I cannot find a mention of the bird in the 
dusky plumage in “Stray Featuers,” I send you a succinct de- 
scription in hopes that the occurrence of the birds in the country 
so late as May will stimulate further inquiry among ornitholo- 
gists. 
d. Length, 13”; wing, 6:25; tarsus, 27°12; bill, 212; 
mid toe, 1:5. 
Plumage.—The entire head, neck, and lower surface, sooty 
black, which is also the ground eolor of the remainder of the 
body ; a few of the shafts of the feathers on the back of the 
neck with minute white tips, more numerous on the hind neck, 
and developing into round white dots on the back; a ring of 
white feathers completely encircles the eye; greater and lesser 
wing coverts, tertials, and elongated scapulars, with a series of 
triangular white dots on the margin of each feathers ; axillary 
plumes pure white, asis also the rump; the tail (including 
the medial pair of feathers), upper and lower coverts, and 
tibial plumes barred with white. 
Legs, dark green; bill which was slightly recurved in the 
fresh bird with the basal half of the lower mandible, and the 
margins of the corresponding portion of the upper one dark 
red. 
? Length, 14"; wing, 638 ; tarsus, 2'"25 ; bill, 2’-25 ; mid 
toe, 1°58. Is a slightly larger bird and differs in having each 
feather of the breast, flanks, and abdomen narrowly margined 
with white, and in being a little more white about the wing 
coverts, and in having the medial pair of tail feathers less 
strongly yet distinctly barred. These differences I am inclined to 
regard as seasonal rather than sexual. The ¢ bird corresponds 
exactly with the figure given in the Naturalist’s Library, Vol. 
XIII. pl. 14, fig. 1, of this species in summer plumage. While 
Yarrell’s exquisite woodcut, Vol. II. p. 624, fig. 1, is a perfect 
counterpart of the stage of plumage exhibited by the 2. The 
bird is also figured life-size in Hardwicke and Gray’s III. of 
Ind. Zoo., Vol. II., pl.. 53, figs. 1 and 2, in both stages of 
plumage. Figure one (summer plumage) shows the beautiful 
white ring of feathers round the eye very distinctly. In this 
ficure the bird is represented with legs of a dusky green, witha 
slight fleshy tinge about the knee and foot. In figure two (winter 
plumage) the legs are light orange red. All the authorities 
I can turn up (Yarrell, Jardine, Swainson, and Morris), I find 
agree in giving the legs as vermillion (light red) in winter, and 
dark red in summer. My birds when freshly shot had dark 
green legs, unrelieved by a single tinge of pink or flesh color. 
I got a beautiful pair of Zringa sub-arquata here, on May 17th. 
A $ of which is in perfect chestnut summer plumage. You say, 
