194 THE PIN-TAIL. 
Males—( All in adult plumage). Length, 22'0 to 29'0 ; expanse, 
32°0 to 37°75; wing, 10°3 to 11°75; tail from vent, 4°8 to 9'4; 
tarsus, 15 to 1°8; bill from gape, 2:0 to 245; weight, 1 Ib. 
10-0zs. to 2 Ibs. 12 ozs. 
Females —Length, 20'0 to 22°5; expanse, 32'0 to 34:5; wing, 
9°3 to 10'2; tail from vent, 4’2 to 55; tarsus, 1°45 to 1°7; bill 
from gape, 2°1 to 2°35; weight, 1 Ib. 2 ozs. to 1 tb. 14 ozs, 
In the adult male the bill is plumbeous, light plumbeous or 
lavender blue, with the entire lower mandible, a broad band 
along the entire culmen, the angle at the base of the 
upper mandible, and a strip along the margin of its terminal 
half, black. 
In the adult female (at any rate during the cold season) 
the ‘bill is generally very similarly but duller coloured ; it is 
blackish dusky, passing to dusky plumbeous on the sides of the 
upper and rami of lower mandible. Sometimes in apparent 
adults it is uniform dusky. In young birds the bills are every- 
where a nearly uniform blackish dusky. 
The irides are deep brown, sometimes with a reddish tinge. 
The legs and feet are greyish plumbeous, sometimes paler, 
sometimes darker, often duskier on the joints, and always so on 
the central portions of the webs, which,in some males, are 
almost black; the claws blackish dusky. In some apparently 
adult males (one a very fine bird, length 28°75) I have 
noted the feet as brownish black, blackish grey, and uniform 
dusky,* but the normal colouration is as above described. 
THE PLATE—The bills and feet are not typically coloured ; 
usually there is far more blue grey on both. The fulvous buff 
flank patch of the male is not sufficiently brought out, otherwise 
the figure of the male is not bad ; but in no species is the under 
surface more commonly tinged with rusty (vzde ante, p. 162) than 
in this, and the lower parts in the Pin-tail consequently vary 
from snow-white to a rich rusty buff. In the female, as figured, 
the tone of colouration of the upper surface is much too rufous ; 
it should be greyer, and very commonly the whitish margins to 
the wing coverts are far more conspicuous in this sex than 
would appear from the plate. The female can always be 
distinguished from that of all our other species by her sharply 
pointed tail. Young females have the entire under surface 
thickly spotted with greyish brown. + 
* The colour of the legs seems to vary a great deal. I have recorded this in 
the case of nearly fifty examples, but I have never seen colouration such as Swinhoe 
met with in a male. ‘‘ Legs very pale yellowish flesh colour, variegated with 
shades of purplish brown, darker tint of last on nails and on the web membranes,” 
+ Captain Butler thus describes a young couple of Pin-tails :—‘‘ The male had the 
head dusky, minutely spotted, increasing on to the neck. ‘Tail of 16 feathers with 
central feathers pointed, but not elongated. There was the pale red bar above the 
black green speculum with the white edge ; tertiaries very broad dark grey, with 
broad velvet stripe, yellowish edging ; back black, with two white bars ; and central 
