316 My. J. H. Gurney’s Notes on 
in some individuals, and at the spot where each of the pale 
interspaces crosses the inner webs of the rectrices the colour 
changes from fulvous brown to white, although these changes 
in the tail are sometimes postponed till the assumption of 
the third stage of plumage has commenced; on the under 
wing-coverts the transverse barring begins on the lowest row 
of feathers, and before it spreads further, and sometimes 
before it even begins at all, the axillaries and tibize become 
regularly cross-barred, whilst the flanks, breast, and abdo- 
men still show but scanty indications of the transverse bands, 
which are gradually developed on those parts also, and which, 
it may be observed, are, at their earliest appearance, much 
broader and more rufous in some individuals than in others, 
but usually appear most broadly and conspicuously on the 
sides of the upper breast, whence they sometimes extend on to 
the sides of the nuchal collar. This collar would seem to be 
always white in the first instance, occasionally becoming 
tinged with fulvous as its change to the rufous colouring of 
the second stage approaches, though in other cases the com- 
mencement of this change is indicated by some of the white 
feathers of the collar acquiring a brown spot or a brown tip 
of variable depth, whilst in yet other cases the change begins 
by the lowest row of feathers in the collar first assuming the 
rufous hue which subsequently pervades the whole. 
Some individuals begin to assume the grey head and face 
of the third stage before they have passed into the second 
stage, which they thus partially overleap, and probably, in 
some cases, never undergo at all. 
When the change takes place from the second or rufous 
stage to the third or earlier grey dress, the head usually 
becomes grey first, feathers either wholly grey or tipped 
with grey appear in the mantle, the nuchal collar disappears, 
and the rufous transverse bars, which alternate with the 
white ones on the under surface, assume a tinge of slaty grey, 
with which the rufous tints remain mingled for a while and 
then gradually disappear. 
As the fourth stage is approached, the white transverse 
bai's on the under surface become gradually fewer and nar- 
