I subjoin a careful description that I took from a scries of
adult, but not old, birds, which may assist my readers in
discriminating this very variable form. :—
The chin, throat, and middle of the abdomen are white ; the
entire breast rufous buff, most rufescent in the middle of the
breast, which is unmarked ; the sides of the breast, with a more
or less circular black spot near the tip of each feather ; upper
part of abdomen, sides of abdomen, sides of the body much
the same pale rufous buff as the sides of the breast; in some
Specimens these parts arc spotless ; in others they exhibit a greater
or smaller number of spots, similar to those on the sides of the
breast, but often more oval; flanks and lower tail-coverts a rather
brighter rufescent buff ; feathers of the vent mingled buffy white
and dull white; tibial plumes usually brownish ; lores buffy
white, often speckled with brown ; check's and sides of the head
pale buffy or buffy white, speckled and spotted with brown ; earcovcrts
small and inconspicuous, brown or rufescent brown, pale
shafted ; indications of a broad pale supcrcilium ; forehead
pale buff, barred or speckled with black ; crown and occiput
rufous (the feathers tipped black), with a narrow pale central
streak ; back, scapulars, rump, lesser wing-covcrts, brown, patched
with ferruginous rufous and pencilled with black, and many of
the feathers tipped with buffy white, these tippings preceded by a
black band ; primaries, secondaries, and primary greater coverts
plain, pale, grey brown, and the greater coverts and the quills
often more or less margined with pale rufescent; median coverts
and secondary greater coverts pale greyish rufescent, broadly
tipped with buff, and with a large black spot near the tip; tertiaries
pale brown, tinged with rufous, especially on the outer
webs, pencilled in zig-zag with black, in some perhaps more
correctly freckled, and with a buff band, preceded by an
irregular black one near the tip on the outer webs.