Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1838 Vol.2.djvu/311

Mr. Selbt's Account of Two Rare British Birds. 275 bill, two inches and five-eights; the colour, blackish brown, inclining to flesh red at the base; forehead, cheeks, and chin, blackish brown, having a soft velvety appearance : crown and occiput, deep black, with a few yellowish specks upon the eyebrows; neck and upper part of breast, dingy yellowish brown, the shafts of the feathers and a transverse bar near their tips, black; mantle, black, each feather with a small yellowish spot on each side the rachis near the tip; scapulars, black, barred and tipped with buff and yellowish brown; the tertials with paler bars; wing coverts, blackish brown, those near the ridge of the wing immaculate, the rest with yellowish brown bars; quills, deep hair brown; rump and under tail coverts, barred with yellowish brown and black; tail feathers, black, with two bars of pale chesnut brown near their tips, the extreme end black; tail, extending about five-eights of an inch beyond the closed wings : lower breast, belly, and abdomen, deep brocoli brown, and shewing upon the sides undulations and bars of a paler colour; under wing coverts and wing, axillary feathers very deep brocoli brown, inclining to blackish brown; legs and toes blackish grey the tarsus nearly 1 inch and a quarter in length. It proved a female, and the ovary contained a vast number of embryo eggs, some of them as large as a No. 5 shot.