RARER BRITISH BIRDS. 
43 
States : ” but that may easily be accounted for, either in the 
drying of the specimen, or by a difference in sex. 
Our specimen has the head, neck, and breast, rust colour, 
blotched with black, slightly on the breast and lower part of 
the neck, but more strongly on the occiput and hinder part 
of the neck ; back and wing coverts, black, each feather edged 
with ferruginous ; belly and rump, cinereous, the feathers of 
the latter with darker centres, and appear to be in the act of 
changing colour, two of the lower ones being quite black ; vent, 
under tail coverts, and under wing coverts, pure white ; quills, 
with the shafts, inner webs in the four first, inner and outer 
in the remainder, white ; tips of all, and outer webs in the 
four first, dark brown ; secondaries and tertiaries, brownish 
ash, the former slightly tipped, the latter broadly, with white; 
tail, light brown, two centre feathers longest and rather darker 
than the others ; bill, as far as could be judged from a dried 
specimen, dark reddish yellow at the base, and black or deep 
green towards the point ; legs and feet, brownish green ; length, 
nine inches ; length of tarsi, one inch ; length of bill, from 
rictus to point, scarcely one inch. 
