218 SOMATEEIA LABRADOEIA. 



whiter as it approaches the the flanks^ quite white under 



breast, where the down itself the white feathers of the breast. 



becomes white with the feathers. 

 "No. 920 a (female).— Down dusky "No. 9\9 a (female).— Down dusky 



brown throughout. brown throughout. 



" No, 920b (immature). — Nearly the 



same, only showing whiter under 



the whitish feathers of the breast, 



as in the male.'' (Plate LV.) 



" Somateria spectaUlis (King Duck). 

 "No. 918 (male). — The down is decidedly |)a/^r than in 



the male Eider. 

 " No. 9\Sc (female). — The down is decidedly darher than 



in either the female Eider or male Pied Duck." 



The following is the description of the young male bird from Liverpool 

 figured in the Plate : — 



Head, back, rump, and tail brownish grey. Upper tail-coverts darker. 

 Wing — primaries blackish ; secondaries, with the exception of the first three, 

 white ; tertiaries white ; the remaining wing-coverts, like the scapularies, 

 greyish, being somewhat similar to the back- and rump -feathers, though 

 a little more grey. Throat white, with a brownish ring indicating the 

 black ring in the old male bird. Breast white, gradually becoming fight 

 brownish towards the vent ; the latter, like the rest of the underparts, dark 

 sandy or greyish sand-colour ; the soft parts as in the adult female. 



Writers are usually silent on what they cannot tell. Departing from 

 this custom, I lament my ignorance of the eggs and nest of this species, of 

 the nestling-plumage in both sexes, also of a full, proper, and exact descrip- 

 tion of the stages of plumage in a bird which, as I conjecture, does not attain 



