601 



feathers, as far as can be seen, on their emergence from the down are whitish with a pale rufous shade, 

 crossed by narrow bars of dark brown, before which the rufous colour slightly increases in intensity, 

 the interspaces being very broad and whitish in colour. The tail is sepia-brown, with a broad blackish 

 bar across it, the tip of the feathers being rather more greyish brown, with a conspicuous apical line of 

 pale rufous, which colour likewise pervades the under surface of the tail ; the upper tail-coverts are 

 edged with fiery tawny. The bases of the scapulars are white, and show conspicuously. A young bird 

 in Canon Tristram's collection differs in being a little more greyish, and in having the bars on the 

 abdomen more plainly developed. It was taken, however, from the same nest as Mr. Gurney's 

 specimens, and may, therefore, only be a day or two older than the ones first noticed by us. 

 The plumage of the two sexes as they proceed towards maturity now differs considerably, so that we think 

 it better to give a description of the males and females separately, commencing with the former, as 

 follows : — 



Male. 



Very young Male. Above dark sepia-brown, with dull rusty edgings to all the feathers, these markings 

 being more obscure on the head, which is rather deeper in colour than the rest of the body ; the hinder 

 part of the neck is distinctly rufescent ; on the scapulars and here and there on the wing-coverts the 

 white bases to the feathers show through; the inner web of the secondaries is deeply tinted with 

 rusty, so that the under face of the wing is more or less rufous all over ; the under surface of the 

 body is rufous, the throat and chest inclining to white, and streaked longitudinally down the centre 

 of each feather with brown ; the upper part of the breast transversely crossed with brown, which, 

 however, is not in regular bars, but takes the form of a triangular heart-shaped patch ; on the lower 

 part of the breast the cross bars are dark brown in colour, rather irregular, and V-shaped ; the belly 

 and under tail-coverts, as also the thighs, are uniform pale tawny with faint spots and cross markings 

 of brown; the under wing-coverts are similarly marked, but are a little darker rufous. Total length 

 9"5 inches, culmen 065, wing 6'1, tail 4"5, tarsus 2 - 05. 



The specimen above described is a little male bird belonging to Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., who informs us that 

 it died in his possession on the 17th of July 1867. It is quite young, the tail being not fully grown, 

 the primaries just shooting, and it has a lump of down remaining on the head, centre of the chest, and 

 base of the primaries on the inner face of the wing, while tufts of down still adhere to the feathers of 

 the flanks, thighs, upper wing-coverts, and lower back and rump. We have described it thus fully, 

 inasmuch as we wish to draw attention to the rufous coloration of the under surface. This reddish 

 tint only gradually disappears. The description of the fully grown young bird of the year is here- 

 with appended, the example described being a male shot near Cookham, in Berkshire, on the 10th of 

 November 1870, by Mr. Joseph Ford : — 



Young Male. General colour above brown, all the feathers conspicuously edged with rufous, these markings 

 being less distinct on the crown ; the nape much varied with white, and at the same time strongly 

 tinged with rufous ; the lores and a distinct eyebrow carried backwards over the ear-coverts mottled 

 with brown and rufous like the back of the neck; cheeks and sides of the neck also mottled with 

 brown and rufous, the former mesially streaked with a hair-like central stripe of dark brown; wing- 

 coverts brown like the back, and edged with rufous exactly in the same manner; quills dark sepia- 

 brown, with pale rufous edges to the inner primaries and secondaries, irregular, and looking like the 

 remains of a band; the shafts of all the quills brown; the inner face of the wing glossy white, the 

 secondaries, however, inclining to pale rufous, the whole wing crossed with blackish bars, and the' tips 

 of the feathers shading off into the same colour ; these dark bars are almost undistinguishable on the 

 upper aspect of the wing ; the number of distinct dark bars on the long primaries is five, not including 

 the one at the extremity of the quill ; tail likewise sepia-brown, but rather paler than the wings, the 



