COLORATION 99 



The young of no other birds have retained this striped 

 livery in such completeness as those of the ostrich tribe 

 and the grebes : in all other cases the stripes have been 

 reduced in number. Further, in more or fewer members 

 of each group wherein striped nestlings occur, a gradual 

 process of disintegration of the stripes, and the consequent 

 evolution of a new livery, is met with : the stripes breaking 

 up to form a mottled garb, and the mottlings disappearing 

 to give place to a covering of uniform hue. The galli- 

 naceous birds well illustrate this. The nestling cassowary 

 and Argus pheasant, for example, are conspicuously 

 striped, while the young of our native game-birds display 

 varying degrees of the disintegration of this pattern. 



The plover tribe exhibit the same phenomena, though 

 well-defined stripes are the exception rather than the 

 rule. They occur, however, in the young of the aberrant 

 jacana, for example, which displays strongly defined black 

 stripes set off by a bright chestnut, while in the Norfolk 

 plover, or thickknee {(Edicnemus), the ground colour of 

 the body is of a pale huffish grey, which is relieved by 

 two narrow black lines along the back, and a median 

 line along the head. In the young common snipe three 

 very distinct white lines stand out against a background 

 of a rich dark chestnut. Among the gulls, which are to 

 be regarded as near relations of the plovers, stripes are 

 rare. But they are seen in the young of the little tern 

 {Sterna minuta), which displays a median and two lateral 

 black stripes on a background of sandy-buff. In the 

 common gull (Larus canus), a median and lateral stripes 

 are still plainly visible, and the neck, too, is spotted, 

 as in the emu. 



In most of the plovers the downy plumage is mottled : 

 in the young Kentish plover, for example, it is of pale 



