WILD KALEEGE HYBRIDS 95 



The wings are quite conservative and are usually wholly juvenile. A slight advance 

 is sometimes seen in the form of a well-marked sub-terminal band, extending entirely 

 around the visible margin, with a terminal band of buff. This gives the wing a very 

 elegant appearance, the monochrome of vermiculated rufous brown broken by the 

 distinct outlining of each feather. In such a wing the adventitious growth of a second- 

 ary presents a startling intrusion of black and white, developed, curiously enough, only 

 on the visible portion, the remainder of the feather being quite juvenile. 



The tail is perhaps the most variable factor of all, and hardly any two birds have it 

 alike. The central rectrices in particular vary from warm buff, everywhere thickly 

 vermiculated with wavy, dark brown lines, to the other extreme, which is pure white, 

 with thick, wavy, oblique, black lines on the outer web, the inner being white except for 

 a few linear mottlings near the shaft. 



Whatever the condition of the inner rectrices, the outer are invariably more juvenile, 

 more tinged with brown, the outer pair being sometimes quite rufous and brown, thus 

 reflecting vividly the gradual moult from the outside inward. 



Two or three immature males which have acquired adult tails show as much 

 variation as exists in fully adult birds ; from an excess of black banding over all the 

 feathers to the excess of pure white over the inner webs of the central pairs. So this is 

 wholly individual variation. 



In birds acquiring the full adult moult, the numbers of concentric black lines on 

 the dorsal plumage, in number and variability, correspojtd exactly with those in the 

 adult bird. 



The young birds show all shades of feet and legs, from pale brown through flesh 

 colour to deep rich scarlet. 



Adult Female. — Upper parts brownish buff, everywhere very faintly mottled with 

 darker. Feathers of rear crown and occiput rather more mottled and elongated into a 

 crest. Wings the same, becoming a shade more rufous on the secondaries. Primaries 

 plain dark brown on the inner webs. Rectrices present considerable variation, some 

 with the lateral feathers showing much more contrasted markings than others. In the 

 more common type the central rectrices have a ground-colour of pale buff, finely 

 vermiculated with dark brown, while as we proceed outward, the feathers increase in 

 intensity of rufous colouring, and the markings become less alike on the two webs, 

 the outer webs being mottled, the inner obliquely banded with pale buff, these markings 

 being indistinctly outlined in black. 



Chin and throat white, the feathers posteriorly with a rapidly increasing central 

 spot and margin of brown, until on the breast the white is reduced to one or two con- 

 centric rings. This pattern, but with considerable variation, covers the entire ventral 

 surface. From two to four buffy-white and dark-brown concentric rings or oblique 

 cross-bars show all variations, from a rarer pattern of very regular, concentric markings 

 to the more usual appearance of broken, spotted, irregular cross-bands. This is wholly 

 individual. 



In well-authenticated skins I find none of the radically characteristic homogeneous 

 types of females which have been accredited to these and related so-called species of the 

 group. The females of typical sharpei near the Ruby Mines district are most assuredly 



