248 
AXATIDiE. 
every author describes the bill and feet of this bird differently ; 
even Macgillivray has, I think, taken his description from the 
dried “ skin and feathers ” he so frequently ridicules. In the 
adult male killed in June I have always found the bill, as far 
as the front of the nostrils, ochre yellow, the remaining portion 
stained with grey, and the unguis pale yellowish horn colour ; 
the eye brown, tarsi and feet light yellowish olive green ; the 
membranes blackish ; claws light brown. 
The female at the same season has the biU, feet, and tarsi 
coloured in nearly the same manner, but much dingier, and 
with the yellow of the bill deadened with brownish olive green. 
A male in its first year, shot on the 20th of February, had those 
parts coloured as in the female, but in the general plumage the 
brovm was not so rich and was smaller in quantity ; the black 
marks, as a rule, closer set and smaller. The back was but 
slightly barred with black ; cheeks, below and behind the eye, 
so closely marked as to appear almost of a uniform dingy black. 
Throat and front of neck without reddish brovm, being merely 
an indistinct mottling of dirty w^hite and blackish brovm. ISTo 
white upon the vdngs, but on the breast several new white 
feathers. 
The tints of the female vary considerably, but it is probable 
that this circumstance has been much overrated by observers 
who have not taken sufficient pains to discriminate between the 
females and the first year’s males. Having examined a great 
number of specimens, I feel convinced that the male does not 
acquire its full adult plumage sooner than the fourth summer. 
Even during the first summer, when the young males have a 
considerable amount of white in their plumage, they are often 
mistaken for wandering females ; and have doubtless, when 
seen in small numbers accompanying old males, given rise to 
or confirmed the erroneous supposition that these latter are 
polygamous. 
inserted at the throat, the forcible introduction of air between the skin and the 
body completely detaching the one from the other all round ! And the good 
fellows believed it too. — E d. 
