COLOURING OF STEBCOBABIUS GBEPIDATUS. 369 



(3) Another bird is much like this last one (No. 2), but there 

 is, here, a distinct broad dunnish space dividing the throat and 

 breast parts. 



(4) Another bird — one of two standing together — is the com- 

 mon form (that is, dark), except that the neck and throat just 

 below the head for about an inch is very much lighter, making 

 a considerable approach to cream, without quite obtaining it. 

 This light part is conspicuous in the one bird, but not in the 

 other (No. 5) it is standing by. 



(5) This other one might pass for the ordinary dark form, 

 but on examining it through the glasses a lighter, though less 

 salient, collar is distinctly visible. 



(6) In a third bird, not far off these two (Nos. 4 and 5), the 

 whole colouring from immediately below the forehead and crown 

 of the head, which seems always to be black (or very dark), is of 

 a uniform brown-drab or brown-dun colour, there being not the 

 slightest approach to a lighter collar, or any lightness elsewhere, 

 except that which — as in all the birds — becomes visible on the 

 quill-feathers of the wings in flight. 



(7) In another bird the breast and ventral surface is of a 

 delicate silvery cream or creamy silver, something like that of 

 the Great Crested Grebe. On the sides of the neck and just 

 below the chin it is the same — perhaps a little less silvered ; but 

 between these two spaces — and so between the chin and breast — 

 a zone of faint brown or dun, somewhat broken and cloudy, 

 pushes itself forward from the wings, thus breaking the continuity 

 of the light surface by the strengthening of a tendency which is, 

 perhaps, just traceable even in the lightest specimens. Besides 

 this a similar clouded space is continued downwards from the 

 back of the head, first in a diminishing quantity, and then again 

 broadening out till it joins the upper body-colour. So that here 

 only a little of the nape is white, hardly more than what may be 

 described as the two sides of the neck. This is a very pretty and 

 delicate combination. 



(8) Close beside this last bird (No. 7) is a uniformly dark 

 brown one ; and 



(9), not far on the other side of it, one which exhibits the 

 same sort of general effect, in a dark smoky dun. This latter 

 bird would generally pass as representing the dark form, and, 



