1843.] Catalogue of Nepdlese Birds. 309 



vulgaris. " Mature female twenty-three to twenty- four inches long, 

 by fifty -four to fifty-six inches in extent of wings, and three lbs. 

 and three-quarters in weight:" wing from bend sixteen inches and 

 three-quarters to eighteen inches and a quarter, and tail ten to 

 eleven inches : point of upper mandible to gape one inch and seven- 

 eighths; and tarse three inches and a quarter, being plumed for 

 the upper inch and a half. The male is considerably smaller, with 

 wings fourteen and three-quarters to sixteen inches, and tail nine 

 inches and a half to ten and a half. 



The following is Mr. Hodgson's description of the plumage : 

 " Female : — head, neck, and body below, white ; dashed here and 

 there with beauteous buff, and streaked narrowly and lengthwise on 

 the cap and thighs with brown: tail, whitey-brown, with four to six 

 narrow bars towards the end: back and wing-coverts, medial brown, 

 the larger picked out with rufous: quills immaculate externally, and 

 the great ones darker or black -brown ; all the quills blanched inter- 

 nally except near their tips ; but the primaries, immaculate ; the rest, 

 and especially the secondaries, shewing six brown bars across the inner 

 vanes of the plumes : legs and cere dirty-yellow ; bill blue, its hook 

 and the talons black : iris hoary. 



" Male smaller and less blanched. Young greatly more coloured 

 than the mature female; above and the thighs saturate- brown, edged 

 with rufous ; below sordidly rufescent, or luteous, with large longitudi- 

 nal dashes of brownish-red, changing to herring-bones on the thighs : 

 tail brown, with deeper cross-bands prevailing throughout, and amount- 

 ing to ten in number : iris brown ; legs and cere, greenish." 



From a series of specimens before me, however, it is quite clear that 

 the brightly rufous- edged specimens are adults, while the young have 

 but little trace of this colour, which is more or less confined to the 

 scapularies and wing-coverts, and is besides comparatively very faint 

 and pale ; and that such are the young is demonstrated, not only by 

 the less acuminate form of the nuchal plumes, but from the fact that 

 one of them was killed while beginning to moult, and shews a few of 

 the new bright rufous-edged feathers among its scapularies, which con- 

 trast strongly with the dull hair-brown colour of the rest of the upper- 

 parts. A particularly fine female, received from Mr. Hodgson, may 

 be described as having the dorsal plumage and smaller wing-feathers 



