20 
2 
and neck clear grey; throat and chest deep black; rest of the under surface of the body deep grey, a 
little paler on the upper part of the breast, the under tail-coverts being edged with white; the under 
wing-coverts crimson, slightly varied with blackish; bill and feet black; iris black (Bailly), dark brown 
(Hutton). 
Adult Female. Similar to the male, but never has the black of the throat so extended, and always more 
bordered with white. The ashy colour of the upper parts, and the blackish grey of the under parts are 
clearer than in the latter. M.Caire proved this fact by the dissection of two females killed in the 
Basses Alpes in July 1853, both of which had the abdomen bare and eggs in the ovaries. (Bailly, Orn. 
Say. ui. p. 11.) 
Winter plumage. Instead of having the throat black, this part of the body is pure white; the upper parts 
are also of a silvery grey, and the whole tone of the plumage is brighter. 
On leaving the nest, the young birds have the colours distributed as in the adults in the winter plumage, 
but they are always more dull, and the crimson of the wings less extended; the beak is shorter and 
broader at the base, quite straight till the time of the first moult—in fact, almost straight till the 
second year. 
After moulting, the bills still remain shorter than in the adult birds, or even those of two years of age; but 
they resemble them in plumage, excepting in the spots on the inner web of the primaries, which are for 
the most part rufous, instead of being white as in the others. 
The young of the previous year of both sexes do not regularly in Savoy put on the black throat in the first 
spring; this part always remains grey, whilst the blackish colour of the rest of the body becomes darker 
than in the winter plumage. Birds of this age often don this colour later in the year, in May or 
sometimes in the first days of June; and then they preserve a slight whitish edging to each black plume; 
so that the males could be easily confounded with the females, if the latter were not at this period 
almost white on the neck, back, and scapulars. (Bailly, 1. c.) 
Obs. This is evidently the stage of plumage described by Herr von Pelzeln, from a bird procured at Tuantse 
Sumbo by Dr. Stoliczka during his expedition to Thibet and the Himalayas. The same stage is repre- 
sented in our own collection by a specimen from the Alps. 
Obs. In his description of the adult male in breeding-plumage, M. Bailly says :—“ The first three or four 
quills, according to the age of the bird, have two white spots; the fourth or fifth, only one; the three 
or four next ones are not spotted at all; but the fourth or fifth following these has a reddish patch. 
These spots only appear when the wings are open.” The adult male which we described has two white 
spots on the inner web on the second, third, fourth, and fifth primaries, the markings being gradually 
smaller on the three latter ; but it has no rufous markings whatever: a breeding bird in Mr. J. H. Elwes’s 
collection, from Darjeeling, likewise agrees in every particular, except that it has one slight mark of 
white on the sixth primary. Another specimen, in winter dress, in Mr. Howard Saunders’s collection, 
agrees capitally with Bailly’s account of the markings on the wing; but a bird in our own cabinet, which 
bears every trace of immaturity, has a rufous spot on the inner web of all the quills; so that we may 
safely infer that this rufous spot is a sign of immaturity, and that it gradually disappears as the bird 
becomes adult. 
The bill in the present species varies much, as will be seen by the following measurements taken from a 
series of specimens now before us :— 
