292 A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



as in winter ; wing as winter but innermost secondaries with 

 rounder, less pointed tips. 



Adult female. Eclipse. — Crown pinkish or pale pink-buff, 

 feathers with oval spots and irregular V-shaped bars of black 

 glossed dull green, giving streaked or spotted appearance ; nape as 

 crown but spots and bars smaller and browner without greenish 

 tinge ; mantle sepia or dark ash-brown, feathers edged whitish or 

 buff, some feathers of upper-mantle with more or less pronounced 

 narrow pink-buff bars ; scapulars black-brown broadly edged and 

 sometimes barred pink-buff or cinnamon, lowest scapulars dark 

 sepia, tipped white (mantle and scapulars usually without barring) ; 

 back and rump black-brown or ash-brown (sides of rump pink- 

 cinnamon) feathers edged white ; upper tail-coverts sepia fringed 

 buff or whitish and usually with buff V-shaped marks or irregular 

 bars ; cheeks, sides of neck, chin, throat and fore-neck pink-buff or 

 pink-cinnamon heavily spotted and streaked dusky or black-brown 

 (in some chin and part of throat uniform) ; feathers of upper-breast 

 deep pink-buff mostly with terminal bars or spots of sepia and long- 

 white or buff fringes ; sides of body and flanks deep pink- buff or 

 cinnamon- brown, feathers edged white ; centre of breast, belly 

 and vent white, feathers of latter shaded dusky-grey ; under tail- 

 coverts white with dark sepia V-shaped oval, or transverse mark- 

 ings, long feathers sepia or black-brown edged and broadly barred 

 white or buff ; axillaries and under wing-coverts as male ; tail- 

 feathers as male but sometimes with buff marks, central pair deep 

 mouse-grey usually with an obsolete buff bar and edged white ; 

 primaries as male ; four outer secondaries deep mouse-grey or sepia 

 tipped white (outer web in some speckled white), rest of secondaries 

 sepia or blackish mouse-grey, outer webs brown-black and tipped 

 white, usually with a green gloss (green speculum sometimes almost 

 as brilliant as in male), innermost secondaries and their coverts 

 with outer webs black-brown (in some glossed dull green) and 

 edged white, inner webs olive -brown, one next speculum with 

 outer web white as in male ; greater coverts ash-brown or sepia 

 with outer webs edged greyish-white and with narrow black-brown 

 tips, in some both webs tipped black and with a whitish subterminal 

 bar (in some broadly tipped white) ; median coverts ash-brown or 

 sepia with broad white edges, in some suffused pink-buff, or with 

 a transverse buff-bar ; lesser coverts dark ash-brown faintly edged 

 white (soon lost by abrasion). This plumage is acquired by 

 complete moult July to Sept. 



Adult female. Winter and summer. — The body -feathers, some- 

 times some tail-feathers, some innermost secondaries and coverts, 

 occasionally an odd median covert are moulted Oct. to April. Some 

 acquire most of breeding plumage by Dec. or Jan., tail-feathers are 

 usually moulted Jan. or Feb., innermost secondaries not till April 

 or May. There are two types of plumage, one plain, one barred, 

 these types again fall into two types, a greyish or a reddish one. 

 In barred type, feathers of mantle are sepia or ash-brown (in some 



