Esq., of Worcester College, Oxford, lias forwarded me a specimen for
the use of this work. Some incline to a reddish colour.
Incohation lasts from twelve to fourteen days, commencing about
the 20th. of May. Two, and sometimes even possibly three, broods
are reared in the season.
The young birds in their nestling plumage nearly resemble the old
ones, but the colour of the head and the back arc more uniform.
Male; length, five inches and a quarter to a half; bill, brownish
black; the base of the lower mandible brownish yellow; iris, pale
greyish brown; it is said to become whiter with age, and in some
specimens to be perfectly white; eyelids, grey. Head on the crown,
brownish grey, darker than the back; neck and nape, brownish grey;
chin, throat, and breast, white, the latter tinged with pale red, the
sid(s brownish or yellowish grey, but all with a shade of pink; back,
brownish grey, inclining to pale yellowish brown on its lower part.
The wings extend to the width of eight inches; the quills are
eighteen in number; the first is very short, the second rather shorter
than the third, which and the fourth are of nearly equal length, and
at the same time the longest: greater and lesser under wing coverts,
greyish wdiite; underneath, the wings are grey; greater and lesser
wing coverts, widely edged with yellowish brown; primaries, secondaries,
and tertiarics, blackish brown, edged with greyish or yellowish brown,
the latter the most widely so. The tail, rather long, rich blackish
brown, the outer feather on each side with an oblique longitudinal
band of greyish white extending over the outer half of the inner
web and the whole of the outer one; the tips of the next three
feathers are also whitish; underneath, the tail is grey. The outer
and middle feathers are rather shorter than the intermediate ones;
upper tail coverts, grey with a tinge of brown. Legs, small, and as
the toes and claws, very dark bluish grey.
The female is slightly smaller; she resembles the male in appearance,
but the sides of the head are paler in colour, the crown, the neck
on the hack, and nape have the grey tinged with brown, the back
and upper parts more tinged with yellowish brown, and the breast
with grey.
I n the young the eye is dark coloured; the eyelids and corners of
the mouth, yellow.