Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/402

342 bird, and it at once gives us a totally distinct-looking appearance to the first specimen or any other immature stage of A. gambeli. Here we have a bird whose parents do not require entirely black under parts for the breeding period! The whole of the under parts, from the breast to the abdomen, are a pale stone drab fringed with lighter, and becoming almost white towards the abdomen. None of these feathers shows the slightest traces of having had the dark colouring matter in them which is to be found up to the fourth stage in A. gambeli. The flanks are a darker drab with pale margins. The mantle is pale umber margined with drab. Rump blackish umber; upper tail-coverts much paler than in gambeli, being a washy brown and dirty white. The tail is very like that of gambeli, but a paler tint of dark umber. Round the base of the bill and under the throat a fair space of dirty white feathers interspersed with blackish ones; forehead and front cheeks blackish, but in no way as dark as the other bird; head and neck a dark rusty drab, darkest on crown and back of neck. Outer wing-coverts slaty drab, gradually darkening into deep umber margined with paler of the medians, and slaty drab broadly margined with dirty white of the first coverts. Primaries dark umber but with a light hoary shading, secondaries nearly black. Alula and base of primaries a hoary slate. Abdomen and under tail-coverts dirty white. There was not sufficient difference in the colours of soft parts in these two birds to induce me to make special notes, and I find that in my manuscript book which I keep for recording colours of soft parts the one description answers for both birds; but the legs and bill look much paler now than those of the first specimen. The ridge of the bill shows traces of dark markings, and the nail is partly brown and dirty white. I did not take length and weight of this bird before skinning. Wing 15 in.; bill 1·85 in.; tarsus 2·45 in.

I can now take these three stages more briefly. In the second stage—male—one can unmistakably see the commencement of the fading away of the dark colouring matter which