158 GRAKLE. 



beneath ; wings and tail glossy black, with a tinge of green and 

 purple in various lights ; tail even at the end, and the wings reach 

 to about the middle of it; legs long, pale yellow-brown. M. 

 Boddart, who described this bird more than twenty years before it 

 came under M. Levaillant's inspection, only had seen the dead spe- 

 cimen, which was sent from the Cape of Good Hope to Holland, in 

 spirits, and as it had wattled appendages on the jaw, as well as a 

 crest of the same bare substance on the top of the head, although 

 they appeared in the dry state of no particular colour, supposed them 

 to have been, when the bird was living, the same as those of the 

 common Cock, and described them, accordingly, of a red, or orange- 

 colour. M. Levaillant, however, assures us, that he has met with 

 great numbers of these birds, and that the plumage is not different 

 from what is mentioned in the Naturforsclier, the male having a 

 double kind of wattle, springing from the base of the bill on each 

 side, and hanging down for an inch or more, ending in a point ; on 

 the forehead a kind of crest, of an irregular form, placed perpen- 

 dicularly, and these bare parts in the living bird are black ; besides 

 which, the whole face is also bare, but of a rufous yellow ; eyes and 

 legs brown. 



The female is smaller, and the face bare and yellow as in the 

 male ; the appendage, or wattle, veiy small, scarcely projecting, 

 and the crest on the crown very little apparent ; the quills, and tail 

 also have hardly any gloss. 



Young birds may be easily mistaken for a different species, not 

 having in that state any bare appendage, though the head is 

 destitute of feathers ; the bill in this case yellowish brown ; the legs 

 brown ; and the colours of the plumage less defined. These birds 

 are sometimes found in the neighbourhood of the Cape in large flocks, 

 but do not breed there, as they go away in the rainy season ; among 

 them are often observed several entirely white, which M. Levaillant 

 having carefully paid attention to, pronounced to be young birds, not 

 having gained the adult plumage, and is further of opinion, that 



