198 Mr. J. H. Gurney’s Notes on 
So far as I have observed, the coloration of the plumage in 
young specimens is much more often dark than pale; indi- 
viduals as darkly and uniformly coloured as the young male 
from Sarepta figured by Mr. Dresser are by no means very 
uncommon ; and this plumage would seem to be retained at 
least to the second moult, as a female which was killed, with 
two young in its nest, near Romsey, is described by Mr. Sealy 
in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1856, p. 5059, as “ of a beautiful purple 
brown all over, no white appearing anywhere, the tail slightly 
barred with two shades of brown.” 
This dark plumage is, in young birds, frequently more or 
less varied by white tips to many of the feathers ; and the ex- 
tent of such variation is not always identical, even in young 
birds from the same nest. Two such nestlings, taken in the 
New Forest, and now in my possession, may serve as an in- 
stance of this, one of them being entirely dark, with the ex- 
ception of white tips to the tertials and rectrices, and of trans- 
verse white bars on the under tail-coverts, whilst the other 
has not only the tertials and tail-feathers white at the tips, 
but also the feathers of the nape, the interscapulars, and the 
wing-coverts, besides a very decided predominence of white 
on all the under surface except the upper breast, where the 
proportions of white and brown colouring are pretty evenly 
balanced ; the dark portions of the plumage in this specimen, 
however, are quite as fuliginous as those of its more whole- 
coloured fellow. 
The variation in this white-tipped nestling produces a result 
similar in character, though less in degree, to that exhibited 
in the white-breasted and nearly white-headed specimen in 
the Norwich Museum which was killed at Horning, Norfolk, 
in September 1841, and has been figured by Mr. Dresser, 
and which, as remarked by that gentleman, is in a phase of 
plumage of decidedly rare occurrence, though now and then 
met with. Mr. Dresser has only seen one other example of 
this peculiar phase; but he quotes Naumann’s description of 
the young male as exhibiting a similar character of colora- 
tion. Mr. Hancock also possesses and has figured a speci- 
men of this description, killed at Hawick, which is shown 
