Culmen 1/4 inch, wing 16 - 2, tail lTO, tarsus 2*1. Thus it will be seen that the sexes differ very little 

 in size. 



Young Female (near Berlin). Head and neck with the tips of the feathers only dark brown, margined with 

 light reddish brown, the rest being white ; back, wings, and tail as in the adult bird, but lighter • 

 underparts white, the feathers being broadly marked with dark brown at the tip; chin pure white, 

 with only a few faint brownish markings. 



Obs. Like all the Buzzards the present species also differs considerably in plumage, the differences being, 

 so far as I can gather, not only those of age and sex, but to a large extent individual variations. 

 Naumann (Vog. Deutschl. pp. 568-572) enters very carefully into this question; and it may there- 

 fore be well to give a short review of what he says, as probably no one is more competent to give 

 a reliable opinion than this well-known and careful observer. The old male he describes from a 

 specimen which closely resembles the old male above described by me, and therefore I need not recapi- 

 tulate what he says; his description of the younger male also closely agrees with mine; bat the 

 young male in first plumage he describes as follows : — " Head and neck yellowish white ; nape, cheeks, 

 and space round the eye slightly marked with brown ; underparts white, with light-brown shaft-stripes, 

 and clouded with brown on the crop ; lower part of the hind neck spotted with white and brown ; 

 upper parts dark brown, with white edges to the feathers ; wings and tail darker than in the adult bird ; 

 cere ochre-yellow ; iris greyish brown." This bird therefore agrees tolerably closely with the specimen 

 from the Norwich Museum, which I have figured. I can scarcely consider this to be the normal dress 

 of the young male; for I have seen most in the dark uniform brown plumage above described, and 

 moreover this white plumage is so rarely met with ; indeed I have never seen more than two examples — 

 one in the Norwich Museum, and one in the collection of Mr. C. Sachse, of Altenkirchen, which he 

 would not part with, but of which Herr von Riesenthal kindly made a careful painting for me. The 

 female in the first year's plumage Naumann describes as follows : — " Cere yellow ; forehead, cheeks, 

 and throat brownish white ; underparts pale rusty brown ; upper parts dark brown, and the dark bands 

 and markings on the tail and wings but slightly developed" — thus differing very little from my 

 description of the young male ; and I have seen specimens, marked as females, which exactly resembled 

 these males, but were slightly larger in size. The very old female described by Naumann agrees most 

 closely with my description ; and he adds that middle-aged females are scarcely distinguishable from 

 males in plumage. 



The old male above described must be an exceedingly old bird, as almost all I have seen, shot in the 

 vicinity of the nest, have the underparts marked more or less strongly with reddish brown, the breast 

 being almost uniform brown. The ashy blue on the head in the old bird fades soon after death ; yet in 

 the old male in my collection this colour is very distinct and clear, though the bird has been stuffed so 

 long. Usually the old males have the underparts white, rather more marked with colour than in this 

 specimen; but that this is not always the case is clearly to be seen by the fact that a male in the 

 collection of Mr. E. Schiitt, the " Bezirks-Forster," at Staufen, in Baden, is very differently coloured. 

 In this specimen the entire upper parts are sooty blackish brown, underparts blackish, the feathers 

 being, however, Avkite at the base ; but this colour only shows through very slightly on the abdomen 

 and thighs ; chin, upper throat, and fore part of the head to behind the eyes ashy blue ; wings and tail 

 as in the adult male above described by me ; but the former have a greyish tinge. 



The inference I deduce from the examination of the various examples is, that in immature, and also, to some 

 extent, in mature dress the present species is subjjsct to a tendency towards albinism, as, for instance, 

 in the pale whitish plumage worn by the specimen in the Norwich Museum, and towards melanism, as 

 in the specimen in Mr. Schiitt's collection above described; but, as a rule, the immature birds vary 



2 II 2 



