OSi'UEY.
The Plate shows the plumage of a young bird when fully fledged and shortly before being able to quit the
nest. I particularly noticed the manner in which all the young, that I have had an opportunity of watching,
curried their wings. The shoulders are drooped and brought far forward ; and this position, to the best of my
knowledge, they usually retain while standing. The younger and weaker birds but seldom rise on their feet.
The colours of the t o n parts were—iria deep chrome-yellow ; beak black; cere blue-black; legs and feet a pale
livid flesh, claws black.
The adults are so well known that there is not the slightest necessity for Illustrating them. What age the
bird may be before it assumes the perfectly mature dress, I am unable to state, except from conjecture; but
I should imagine it is not put on before the third or possibly the fourth year.
A specimen I shot c i Urevdon mud flats showed less white about the head, and coiisiderahly
e dark feathers among the markings on the breast, than any of the birds I have seen at their breedingquarters.
From the dale of its capture, it evidently could not have paired and nested that srason, and I should
imagine it was a bird in the second year. The buck bad lost all of the light-coloured edgings that ap|ioar on the
Teatbers or the young in their first plumage; and the only difference I could detect from the adults was, as
previously stated, on the head aud breast. The legs and feet were more deeply tinted with greenish blue
than I ever observed on any other fresh-killed specimen. In a pair shot at their nest the feet and legs or
the male were of the very palest livid while, with only the slightest tinge ot bluish green; while in the ease
of the female the colour was a pale fleshy white, almost the same that 1 have observed in the nestlings.
The tint of the legs and feet must, I should be of opinion, if any faith is to be put in the coloured plates in
most works, vary considerably in different individuals. Here is the description of the above-mentioned pair,
taken from my noto-ltook:—" The nude and female were alike in plumage, and only differed in the male being
by Tar the smallest. Iris bright king's yellow; beak black; cere eobalt-hlue : legs aud feet by no means so
bluish grceu as usually depicted ; in the female especially the colour was a pale livid flesh."