218 



WILLOW Ci ROUSE. 



The male in summer dress differs from the female on 

 account of its rather larger body and black chin, which 

 in the female is rusty yellow; red brown colour on the 

 neck and breast, where the female has only rusty 

 jrellow and black, and by the altogether different under 

 tail coverts. Sometimes the red brown in the male is 

 so dark as to appear nearly chesnut, or black brown 

 in very old males, but in the younger birds the colour 

 is lighter yellowish red brown, like the female, so that 

 the head and neck above are black, with small red 

 brown spots. Throat, sides of the head, front of the 

 neck, and breast, yellowish brown, with small black 

 transverse streaks; but the female is always distinguished 

 from the male through many or few red brown feathers 

 on the throat and breast. It is according to Nilsson's 

 experience that the males are more seldom met with 

 in pure summer dress than the females. Both moult 

 in July and August, when the speckled feathers are 

 shed and others come in their places; and Liljeborg 

 notices that this species even has an autumn dress with 

 finer rusty yellow watering. 



The young, just before the autumnal moult, from 

 specimens taken from the 9th. to the 16th. of July, 

 about six or seven inches long; beak brown; claws 

 grey; the naked pale red spot over the eyes has 

 already obtained its little dentated comb; legs covered 

 with dirty grey brown hair-like feathers down to the 

 very claws. Head above brown red, with a black 

 spot on the crown, and a brown streak along the 

 back of the neck. The upper parts of the body 

 speckled with red brown and black, with white spots 

 on the shoulders; breast and sides rusty yellow, with 

 black transverse bands. Wing feathers grey brown, 

 the outer finely — the inner ones more thickly — speckled 



