CIRCUS CINERACEUS. 
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belly, and lower flanks blackisb brown ; tail brownish grey ; quills and secondaries blackish brown, and the under 
surface of the tail pale greyish. 
Young. The chick is first clothed with white down, which changes in about ten days to fawn-colour on the upper 
surface ; in a fortnight more, according to Mr. H. Saunders’s observations, the breast and flanks become clothed 
with chestnut feathers, and the quills come out blackish brown with a rich rufous border. 
Male bird of the year. "Wing from 13 to 14 inches ; females not exceeding the males at that age. 
Iris brownish yellow ; cere, bill, and legs much as in the adult. 
Above sepia-brown ; nape and upper tail-coverts white, the former with the centres of the feathers brown, and the 
latter with terminal spots and occasionally bars of the same ; occiput and hind neck edged with rufous ; . wing- 
coverts margined with fulvous ; primaries blackish brown, the longer feathers washed on the outer webs with 
greyish, and the inner webs white towards the base and mottled with brown ; tail with the six central feathers 
brownish grey, barred with brown, the latter becoming broader than the grey ground on the outer of these 
feathers ; the remainder brown, barred with rufescent white. 
Cheeks and a broad eye-streak whitish ; a gular baud of dark rufous-brown, and below it a ruff of paler, dark-centred 
feathers, not contrasting, however, with the band, or setting it off, as in C. macrurus ; chin and gorge rufescent whitish ; 
throat and chest dull brownish rufous, with distinct dark shafts to the feathers, and gradually melting into the 
yellowish rufous of the breast and lower parts, which are striated with broad stripes of rufous ; axillary plume 
dark rufous, with light marginal spots ; median under wing-coverts rufous, with pale margins, the major series 
brownish. 
Ohs. The above is a description of one example, as presenting a fair type of the young male. The under surface, 
however, varies much, though it is always darker than that of C. macrurus, and differs from that species in the 
more conspicuously streaked lower parts, as well as in the duller gular band and less conspicuous ruff below' it. 
Progress towards maturity. The change from this to the adult phase is gradual but systematic. The upper surface 
becomes cinereous brown, the upper tail-coverts sometimes coming out in the adult form (white, with blue-grey 
bands) ; the tail becomes grey, the bars vanishing on the central tail-feathers, and the interspaces on the laterals 
are w’hite in some and rufous-white in others ; the chest and fore neck are rufescent, mingled frequently with 
ashen feathers, and the breast and lower parts pale fulvescent, streaked with rufous stripes ; the lower surface of 
the primaries and the bases of the inner webs are white ; under wing-coverts w'ith more white than in the first 
stage. 
After the next moult the lower parts become w'hite with tawny streaks, as in the adult, and the chest is often ashy with 
cinereous-brown stride ; at the same time the head usually retains its brown dress, and the tail has the lateral 
feathers as darkly barred and as much tinged with rufous as in the younger stage. The gular band is usually dark 
brownish, contrasting with the pale whitish ruff assumed at this age. 
Young female*. In the first year, females do not exceed males in size, measuring sometimes quite as low in the wing 
as the smallest of the latter. 
Iris, in some brown, in others yellow, mottled with brown ; bill, legs, and feet as in male. 
Much resembles the male in plumage, but usually not so dark a rufous beneath, and with the stria) not so strongly 
pronounced ; these are, however, variable in extent, being mostly confined to the chest in some, and extending in 
others to the lower parts ; the primaries are barred on both webs with narrow bands of brown, and the secondaries 
are crossed on their inner webs with broader bars of the same; the wing-coverts vary, being sometimes almost 
uniform, and occasionally very deeply edged with rufous, the brown hue being confined to the centre of the feather. 
In the next stage the rufous ground-colour of the under surface disappears from the edges of the feathers, and the 
mesial stripes contrast markedly with the lighter hue of the rest of the web ; the head continues to be edged with 
rufous as before, and the margins of the hind-neck feathers are the same as in the yearling plumage ; the upper 
tail-coverts are scantily barred or pointed with rufous, and the quills more pervaded with ashy than in the first 
plumage. 
* The adult plumage in this sex varying so much, I have considered it advisable to commence with the young, and 
follow the changes to the old bird. 
