28 ACCIPITER YIKGATUS. 



think, the limit of this coloration. It is taken from a bird shot near Trincomalie, containing an egg ready for 

 expulsion : and Mr. Sharpe, with his wide experience of the Aecipitrina), remarked of this specimen that it was one 

 of the oldest he had ever seen. 



Young. Iris greenish yellow, sometimes mottled with brown specks ; cere dull brownish green or greenish yellow ; 

 eyelid yellowish green ; legs and feet greener in front than in adults ; bill duskier. 



Tlie bird of the year has the head and nape deep brown, tinged with ashen ; a whitish eye-stripe or supercilium ; the bases 

 of the nape-feathers white, showing on the surface more or less ; the upper surface is chocolate-brown, edged with 

 brownish rufous, brightest on the hind neck (and deeper throughout in the female) ; tips of the secondaries and 

 tertials paler than those of the back feathers ; quills barred with dark brown, the interspaces whitish at the inner 

 edges ; tail pale smoky, crossed by four bands, as broad as the interspaces, the terminal one at the tip ; the inner 

 web of the lateral feathers with 5 or 6 narrow light bars. 



Throat and entire under surface buff-white, the chest and upper breast-feathers edged with rufescent buff or yellowish 

 buff (in the female) ; a broad throat-stripe and long oval drops on the neck and chest of sepia-brown ; the sides of 

 the latter part brownish rufous ; the lower parts with rounder spots of a lighter hue : flanks barred with rufous- 

 brown ; thighs with bold spots of brown ; under tail-coverts narrowly streaked with the same ; under wing-coverts 

 buff, handsomely spotted with dark brown. 



Obs. In this species a great variety of coloration in the plumage of the male is met with between the youngest phase 

 and that noticed above of moderately mature birds, but notwithstanding the rufous character of the chest commences 

 directly to assert itself, and serves to distinguish it from the opposite sex. By a change of feather in the first year 

 the sides of the chest become rufous, the centre of the breast assumes a bar-like form of marking, while the flanks 

 and thigh-coverts become regularly banded with rufous-brown. After the next moult the white centre of the chest 

 becomes dashed with rufous and ashen streaks, and the flanks and sides of the breast assume their rufous covering, 

 and present the appearance described above in not fully matured males : this is accompanied by the assumption of 

 the cinereous upper surface and the consequent disappearance of the rufous edgings. In some birds of the second 

 year the chest is striped with rufous, and the surrounding white portions of the feathers washed with the same. 

 Malabar specimens are identical in size and character with Ceylonese ; and an example from Chef oo in the British 

 Museum corresponds as regards size with birds from Ceylon. 



Distribution. — The Besra was first recorded as a Ceylonese bird by Mr. Holdsworth (/. c). It is, however, 

 a common species in the island, and, as Mr. Holdsworth remarks, may have been the bird referred to by 



and with the shafts dusky ; chest, breast, flanks, and lower parts whitish, barred somewhat narrowly with rufous- 

 brown bars edged with rufous ; on the sides of the chest the bars are broadest, and on the abdomen they are wide 

 apart ; thighs narrowly barred, the insides more or less tinged with rufous, and a patch of the same on the lower 

 part of each flank ; under tail-coverts whitish or rufescent white, banded with narrow pointed bars of brown. 

 Examples with marked rufous cheeks have the rufous portions of the lower parts and the under wing-coverts of a 

 corresponding intensity. 



/•', male. Less ashy above, the head aud hind neck dark as in the male, and the latter part much edged with rufous in 

 some examples ; tail with an additional bar, there being always five on the central feathers ; the markings of the 

 under surface are browner, the darker hue predominating on the bars, which are only edged with rufous, and 

 which are likewise more pointed than in the male ; the chin and throat fulvous, with dark shafts to the feathers : 

 under wiug-coverts white, barred with dark brown. 



) owng (nestling). " Clothed with white down ; the feathers of the back deep sepia-brown, with rufous margins ; 

 breast fulvous fawn, the chest longitudinally streaked with brown, inclining to arrow-head markings on the 

 abdomen and to bars on the flanks." {Sharpe, Cat. Birds.) 



Bird of the year. Iris paler yellow than in the adult ; bill paler and yellowish at the base beneath. 



Above brown, the feathers edged with rufous, and the nape marked with white, arising from the exposed basal portions 

 of the webs ; crown darker than the hind neck ; quills rufescent white on the inner webs from the notch to base, 

 both webs conspicuously barred with dark brown ; tail brown, with five or six broadish bands of a darker hue, the 

 lateral feathers with an additional bar and the inner webs pale. 



Cheeks and ear-coverts brown, striated with whitish; throat white, with broad mesial brownish stripes; under surface 



