350 . THE PINTAIL SNIGE: 
of nearly one hundred specimens of each sex, killed between 
the 20th August and the 27th April :— 
Males—Length, 9°75 to 10°9; expanse, 15°5 to 17°4; wing, 
4°05 to 5°42; tail from vent, 2'0 to 2°57 = tarsus) 116 to) ae 
bill from gape, 2°12 to 2°5; bill at front, 22 to 2:6; weight, 
3°2 OZS, tO 4°75 OZS. AVELASE, 3:91 O7ZS, 
Females—— Length, 10:0 to I1'I7; expanse, 161 to 18°25 ; 
wing, 5°0 to 5°58; tail from vent, 2°0 to 2°67 ; tafsus, ema 
1°35 ; bill from gape; 2°38 t0 2°62; bill at front, 2:45" tome ge 
weight; 3°75 ozs. to 571 ozs. Average, 4:2 ozs. Average ef 
both sexes, 4°06 ozs. 
The legs and feet are greenish or greenish leaden, but especi- 
ally late in the spring these parts exhibit, in some birds, a dis- 
tinct olive yellow tinge; the irides are deep brown ; the bill 
generally has the gape, the extreme base and margins of the 
upper mandible greenish, or olive, but sometimes some or all of 
these are unicolorous with the rest of the basal four-sevenths of 
the upper mandible, which are usually pale horny brown; on 
the other hand even these at times show a greenish tinge ; the 
terminal three-sevenths of the bill are deep brown, blackish horny 
towards the tip, and paling towards the opposite direction. 
THE PLATE is not good. I do not mean to assert that no 
sthenura was ever like the plate, because the species is so 
extremely variable that this would be rash ; but it does not at all 
accurately represent an average specimen. If the white mar- 
gins of the scapulars had been given a fawny tinge, if the 
breast had been made browner, and the markings continued over 
it, and if the second face band, which is about a quarter of an 
inch below the eye had been shown instead of being absolutely 
ignored, the picture of the standing bird would have been fair. 
As for the picture of the bird flying away, which has the entire 
lower parts from chin to vent white, and the entire lower back 
and rump unmarked grey, it is purely an effort of the artist’s 
imagination. In every specimen of this species that I have 
ever seen, the front of the neck and the upper breast at least 
have been pale brown or fawny, mottled, streaked or barred with 
dark brown. In every specimen the lower back is regularly 
bared,in some greyish white and blackish brown, in others fawn 
colour and brown, &c.; but it is invariably barred, never uni- 
form. 
Again, the rump and upper tail-coverts are never grey, but 
always a sort of olivaceous or rufescent brown, often well 
barrred, always showing traces of this. 
The species is an excessively variable one. I have speci- 
mens now before me with the entire lower breast, abdomen, 
and vent pure white and unmarked. I have others with 
the whole of these parts barred, almost as strongly and 
regularly as in memoricola. There are some in which the 
