THE PIN-TAIL. 195 
This bird, too, towards the close of the breeding season 
assumes a sober garb resembling that of the female ; and, though 
I have never obtained a bird in this stage of plumage in India, 
such must occur in Kashmir and other parts of the Himalayas, 
and it may be well, therefore, to quote Yarrell’s remarks on 
this subject. He says :— 
“The males constantly undergo a remarkable summer 
change in their plumage which renders them, for a time, more 
‘like their females in appearance than any other species in 
which this change is observed. This alteration commences in 
July, partly effected by some new feathers, and partly by a 
change in the colour of many of the old feathers. At first 
One or more brown spots appear in the white surface on the 
front of the neck ; these spots increase in number rapidly, till the 
whole head, neck, breast, and under surface have become brown ; © 
the scapulars, wing-coverts, and tertials, undergo, by degrees, 
the same change from grey to brown. I have seen a single white 
spot remaining on the breast as late as the 4th of August; 
but generally by that time the males canonly be distinguished 
from females of the same species by their larger size, and their 
beak remaining a pale blue colour. In the female the bill is 
dark brown,” (ot wsually so in Indian birds ! ) 
“ At the annual autumn moult the males again assume, with 
their new feathers, the colours peculiar to their sex, but the 
assumption is gradual. White spots first appear among the 
brown feathers on the front of the neck; by the end of the 
second week in October the front of the neck and breast is 
mottled with brown and white ; at theend of the third week 
in October a few brown spots only remain on the white.” 
Two, if not three, more species, of this genus, occur in South 
America and the Falkland Islands. 
tail black, with yellow stripe ; wing-coverts hair brown with white edging ; the 
flank feathers, as in the female, and not asin the adult male, transversely banded 
black and white. Length, 24 ; wing, 10% ; tarsus, 1$; mid-toe, 24. Female, with 
central tail as in young male, but more marked with yellow. Lower plumage 
altogether more rufous. Length, 20; tarsus, 13; mid-toe with claw, 2 ; 
wing, 93.” 
