202 Mr. J. H. Gurney’s Notes on 
or less distinctly barred with transverse bands of white, alter- 
nating with brown of nearly the same tint as that of the 
mantle. Grey-capped males in this dress are figured in Buf- 
fon’s ‘ Planches Enluminées’ and in Gould’s ‘ Birds of Great 
Britain,’ 
The normal plumage of the adult female is, in my view, 
that which corresponds with the male dress represented in 
these figures, except that the grey on the head is limited to 
the lores, and is more tinged with brown than in the adult 
male; there is, however, in the British Museum a specimen 
procured by Professor Meves at Encoping, in Sweden, and 
said to be a female, in which the entire sides of the head are 
grey, and the brown plumage on the crown of the head is 
suffused with a faint but perceptible greyish tinge. Canon 
Tristram also possesses a specimen, shot at Tunis in the 
month of November, and marked as a female, in which 
both the lores and crown of the head are grey. This speci- 
men has a wing-measurement of 15-9 inches, the tarsus and 
middle toe s. u. beimg each two inches in length ; it is evi- 
dently adult, and, if really a female, is probably a very old 
one. 
The adult male described by Mr. Sharpe would seem, by 
what he says as to the coloration of the underparts, to be a 
bird of a similar complexion of plumage to the old white- 
breasted male from near Stockholm figured by Mr. Dresser. 
This phase of plumage both Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Dresser treat 
as normal in the old male; and I so far agree with them, that 
I do not recollect to have met with it in a female; but, on the ~ 
other hand, I am disposed to regard it as less due to age 
than to partial albinism. 
Mr. Hancock considers this plumage to be characteristic 
of “ the adult male of the second or pale variety.” Mr. Han- 
cock’s “adult male of first or dark variety” appears, from 
his description, not to differ materially from that which I con- 
sider to be the adult male in normal dress. 
Adult females are not unfrequently darker, both above and 
below, than that phase of plumage which [ consider the 
normal type; one of these darker females, known to be 
