THE PLATE is, on the whole, good, but the female figured is
immature. In the really old female the entire loral region is
blackish brown, and in no female is the head quite so red as
in the plate ; it should be browner. In the old female too the
base of the neck all round and back arc greyer, and the latter
more uniform, the paler margins to the feathers being nearly
obsolete. Some males show rather more white on the wing and
scapulars than the specimen figured, and the vcrmiculatcd
feathers shown at the side of the rump belong to the flanks,
and would hardly, in the live bird, show up in the position in
which they arc shown, though they did so, being slightly displaced,
in the skin from which the drawing was made.
In India we get many most interesting and beautiful specimens
of young males changing from the female to the adult
male garb. Dresser's supposed old female from Moscow is
clearly one of these.
No OTHER species of this genus, which is a purely Pala?arctlc
one, (whether one straggler has or has not occurred in America,)
is at present known to exist.