6 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



white, barred throughout with narrow rufescent bars which become 

 darker and more numerous on the upper breast, often running into 

 one another and forming dark patches. On the abdomen and flanks 

 posteriorly, the bars are sometimes centred with a paler tint. 



The adult female does not differ from the male in plumage. " The 

 female is larger with the colours more dull " (Jerdon). " Males 



have the back more of the pale brown and grey, and 



the rump less red than the female " (Yarrell), i.e., Yarrell makes out 

 the female to be a more rufous bird than the male. 



Young birds. — "Differ from the adult in being darker and having 

 creamy-whitish, instead of ashy, spots at the end of the dorsal and 

 scapular feathers ; the lower back, rump and upper tail coverts are 

 plainly barred across with dusky brown, and the tail feathers are not 

 largely notched with sandy brown on their margins, but have a 

 narrow sub-terminal line of sandy buff between the ashy tip and the 

 black of the rest of the feathers. The outer web of the primaries 

 has a distinct series of fulvous notches." (Sharpe). 



The question of the alleged differences in the young bird have 

 been taken up lately by Ogilvie-Grant and in the B. 0. C. Bulletin he 

 thus sums up the result of his observations. " It will thus be seen 

 that . . Gould . . implies that the Woodcocks with tooth-like 

 markings on the outer web of the first long flight-feathers are the 

 young birds of the year." 



" This statement has been generally accepted as correct." 

 " The investigations which I have undertaken during the last few 

 years have clearly proved the entire fallacy of this theory." 



He then explains how he shot many breeding birds in the Azores — 

 an unfortunate but necesssary proceeding — and also obtained young 

 birds of the year from Messrs. Meade- Waldo and Sir Richard Graham. 

 Ogilvie-Grant then comments on Seebohm's description of the 

 differences between the young and the old bird and says that his 

 investigations have "clearly proved that it is impossible to distinguish 

 between the plumage of the male and female Woodcock, or between 

 old and young birds of the year, when once the latter have fully 

 developed their flight feathers." 



Nestlings. — " Covered with a velvety down of a rufous colour with a 

 broad band of chestnut down the centre of the crown, and another down 

 the centre of the back, with three broad transverse bands down the 



