10 
CIRCUS MELANOLEUCUS. 
its character, is put on at one final moult. Adult males are always to be found in the perfect pied dress without 
any intermingling of immature characteristics pointing to a gradual assumption of the black-and-white livery, 
there is, however, much to be learnt concerning the plumage of this species, particularly in respect to the females, 
and a thorough knowledge of it can only be attained by means of the acquisition of a large series of carefully 
sexed and dated specimens. 
Adult female. The wing, in 10 examples measured by Mr. Hume, varied from 13'7 to 15-1 inches*, and the tarsus from 
3-05 to 3-3. 
It is a matter of difficulty to determine in this species which type really represents the fully adult female. The 
following are the dimensions and description of a female shot by myself near Trincomalie, which I have compared 
with examples in the British Museum, and which Mr. Sharpe considers to be fully mature : — 
u. Length to front of cere 17‘8 inches ; culmen from cere 08 ; wing 14 ; tail 9-5 ; tarsus 3T ; mid toe 1-6, claw (straight) 
067. 6 
Iris citron-yellow; cere gamboge-yellow; bill dark horn, bluish at the gape and the base beneath; legs and feet 
gamboge-yellow. 
Head and upper surface, with the wing-coverts and tertials, a subdued though glossy sepia-brown ; the longer scapulars 
with a greyish bloom ; the crown-feathers margined with rufous, and the hind neck with dull whitish, not extending 
to the tips ; edge of forehead, above the eye, and the face whitish ; the lesser coverts, from the shoulder along the 
flexure of the wing, pure white, with brown mesial stripes, gradually extending over the feathers on the succeeding 
series ; winglet, primary and greater coverts, shorter primaries, and the secondaries silvery grey, barred with 
brown, the subterminal band broad, and the tips of the feathers dull white ; longer primaries darker brown, barred 
with the hue of the tips, and the interspaces of the outer webs greyish ; inner edge of all the quills towards the 
base white; upper tail-coverts almost unmarked white; tail above greyish, with four dark bars, the subterminal 
one some distance from the tip, which is pale ; the interspaces of the two outer feathers towards the base white 
and the bars on that part rufous. 
Chin and gorge whitish, striped from the gape round to the ear-coverts with rufous brown ; ruff white, with broad 
brown central stripes ; under surface and under wing white, the fore neck and chest with bold dashes of brown, 
almost confluent on the sides of the neck, and diminishing to mesial stripes of a more rufescent hue on the 
breast, the lower parts having shaft-lines of the same ; lower series of the under wing-coverts with rufescent 
brown bars, the rest with rufous shaft-lines ; lower surface of tail dull wdiitish, the bars showing indistinctly. 
I>. An example in the British Museum, from the collection of Capt. Pinwell, is marked as a female and is in the 
following plumage : — 
Mantle glossy dark clove-brown, much deeper than in the above ; centres of frontal, occipital, and hind-neck feathers 
blackish brown, those of the first-named parts edged with rufous, of the latter with a paler or fulvescent 
hue ; the outermost series of greater wing-coverts silvery white, crossed with broad bands of dark clove-brown • 
secondaries, shorter primaries, and their coverts of the same ground-colour, with blackish bars ; 1st, 2nd and 3rd 
quills with the terminal portions brown, barred with a darker hue on both webs ; internal portion of the inner 
webs of all the quills white ; tail dusky silvery grey, crossed with five clove-brown bars, those on the lateral 
feathers gradually changing into rufous. 
Hides of the throat, together with the posterior part of face and ear-coverts, rufescent, with dark shaft-stripes ; ruff 
whitish, striped with dark brown ; chest fulvescent whitish, the feathers with broad rufous-brown centres ; beneath, 
from the chest pure white, the breast with light rufous-brown stripes, decreasiug in width to lines on the abdomen, 
lower flanks, and under tail-coverts. 
Obs. This example differs from the Tamblegam bird in being darker as regards the brown plumage, and paler as 
regards the grey colouring of the wing-coverts; while the rufous edgings of the head and throat-feathers are more 
brought out, which latter characteristic savours of youth, in spite of the apparently more adult coloration of the 
back and wing-coverts. 
It is in much the same dress as au “adult ” female described by Mr. Hume in his excellent and exhaustive article 
already referred to. Another obtained by Col. God win- Austin in Assam, and described by Air. Gurney (Ibis 
■I 87 ®, P- 130 )’ is d;lrkor tk an either of these-“the entire mantle being blackish brown, increasing in intensity 
as it approaches the tips of the lower scapulars, which are almost black ; the wings show a remarkable 
approach to the plumage of the adult male, but the band which extends across the wing-coverts, instead of being 
black, is dark chocolate-brown, varied by some of the brown feathers passing, in part, into a decided black.” 
It is probable that each of the above examples were sufficiently mature to breed; but it does not follow that the 
arvest birds were the oldest. My bird had the ova developing, and would have bred in the succeeding June, and 
* Colonel Godwin-Austen’s bird 
measures, according to Mr. Gurney, 15-8 (‘ Ibis,’ 1876, p. 131). 
