closely and somewhat irregularly barred with blackish brown ;
chin, throat, cheeks, ear-coverts, sides and front of neck, and
a narrow band across the back of the neck (not shown in
Gould's figure, and wanting in some specimens, but very conspicuous
in most adult males) bright buffy yellow in the breeding
season ; white tinged with the same colour in the winter;
lower part of the back of the neck, upper back and upper
breast white, slightly tinged vinaceous with close regular narrow
transverse blackish brown bars; the whole mantle, including
the scapulars and tertiaries, vinaceous fawn colour, brightening to
rufous buff along its (the mantle's) exterior margin, with large
conspicuous black blotches on the inner webs of the scapulars,
and everywhere excessively finely vermiculated with blackish
brown, which is scarcely perceptible without close examination
except on the upper back and towards the tips of the elongated
tertials ; the lower back and rump are white, very beautifully
vermiculated with dark somewhat greyish brown ; upper tailcoverts
similar, but the ground colour tinged with rufous fawn ;
central tail feathers with the basal portions similar to the upper
tail-coverts, but with a slightly more vinaceous tinge and
with the elongated attenuated portions, which in fine males are
at least five inches in length, black with a slaty bloom on them.
Primaries and their greater coverts black, with a slaty bloom
on them towards the tips, the hinder ones with a more or less
extensive buffy white patch on the inner web at the tip. Secondaries
black, but with more or less of the outer webs (less
in the earlier—more in the later ones) similar in colour to the
tertiaries. Lateral tail feathers bright rufous buff, tipped with
pure white and with several widely separated, moderately broad,
more or less cuneiform transverse black bars. Lower breast
grey ; abdomen, sides, flanks, vent, tibial and tarsal plumes and
shortest lower tail-coverts white, the leg feathers sometimes
slightly tinged with fulvous and with traces of narrow transverse
barrings on the tibia.
Female.—(As I believe, relying on the recorded sexing of my
specimens, but they may be young males). Much resembling
the male, but differing in the much greater extent of pencilling
and barring. The whole mantle and the whole of the breast
(not merely the upper breast as in the male) is distinctly and
conspicuously lincated with narrow zig-zaggy dark brown lines.
The mantle of the male is, doubtless, when closely looked into,
excessively finely vermiculated with blackish grey or greyish
brown, but in the female these markings are very conspicuous,
and on the longer scapulars and tertials arc broader apart, and
fully as distinctly marked as those on the upper breast of the
male. The linear elongated portion of the central tail-feathers
in the female does not apparently exceed three inches in
length. The bill too is decidedly smaller than in the male.