252 MR. J. II. GURNEY ON A FEMALE FERNLS APIVORUS. 
and the new feathers which replaced them were dark brown tipped 
with white ; the interspaces on the secondaries between the dark 
bars had become decidedly tinged with grey ; the Hanks and 
abdomen were white, with broad transverse bands of brown ; 
the irides were at this time of a very pale straw colour, with 
an extremely slight tinge of green just perceptible; this, however, 
disappeared during the ensuing autumn, and the irides then 
assumed a clear pale yellow colouring, and so continued without 
further change till tlic bird died. 
On September 24th, 1884, I again carefully noted the following 
particulars of the state of plumage in which the Honey Buzzard 
then was. The crown of the head and nape Avere at that time dark 
brown with whitish-brown margins to the feathers, these pale 
margins were largest in proportion on the loros, but the centres of 
the lore-feathers were coloured like those of the crown ; the 
ear-coverts were Avood- brown Avith line dark shaft-marks ; the 
mantle Avas dark Avood-broAvn, but Avith paler margins to the loAver 
(or terminal) portion of all the feathers ; the primaries shoAved 
greyish-broAvn interspaces betAveen three dark cross-bars and a dark 
tip, the greyest portion of these interspaces being on the upper 
part of the outer Aveb ; the tail exhibited three shades of broAvn, 
the darkest being apparent on tAvo broad cross-bars and at the tip, 
and the palest in the interspaces, but these paler interspaces Avere 
intermediately crossed by several narroAv transverse bars of a third 
shade of brown not quite so dark as that of the broad cross-bars, 
but darker than the pale portion of the interspaces ; the feathers 
of the upper breast Avere dark broAvn Avith narroAv pale brown tips, 
and those of the loAver breast and abdomen Avere similar, but many 
of them exhibited, more or less distinctly, a Avhite base. 
The general appearance of the bird remained very much as 
above described till it died on March Gth, 1886. But I then 
observed that a slight change of coloration had occurred in the 
interim from the disappearance of all the pale margins and 
tips from the feathers of the mantle and of the upper breast, and 
from the edgings of the feathers of the head having become 
merely pale brown instead of Avhitish broAvn. On examining tbe 
feathers of the abdomen and the under tail- coverts more closely 
than I had been able to do during the life of the bird, I found 
that they had Avhite bases, narroAv Avhite tips, and a broad 
