hind-neck, sides of face, throat, and chest whitish-grey ; remainder of under surface from the chest
downwards sooty-black, the-thighs browner; under tail-coverts, under wing-coverts, and axillaries
black: “ bill and feet orange; iris dark drab-brown; eyelid orange ” (E. L. Layard). Total length
7*8 inches, oulmen 0'85, wing 4:25, tail 2-9, tarsus 1*2.
Adult female. Similar to the male, but with the whitish-grey colour of the head and neck rather
darker, and more decidedly shaded with dusky grey towards the chest: “ bill and feet orange; iris
dark drab-brown” (E. L. Layard). Total length 7*8 inches, culmen 0*85, wing 3-95, tail 2-7,
tarsus 1*25.
Young male. Dusky brown above, the wings and tail blacker; the feathers of the back and
wing-coverts with rufous shaft-stripes and margins; crown of head and neck dull rufous, the
shaft-stripes paler, and the edges of the feathers brown; throat and under surface of body rufous,
paler on the abdomen, the feathers slightly mottled with dusky blackish tips ; under wing-coverts
and axillaries dusky blackish: bill, feet, and iris as in the adult (Lifu, Aug. 20, 1878: JE. L.
Layard).
A young male in changing plumage is like the adult, but has the throat blackish, with a few
of the whitish-grey feathers interspersed; the head and hind-neck whitish-grey ; the breast-feathers
with a slight rufous shade on their margins (Lifu, Aug. 20, 1878: E. L. Layard).
A female bird has distinct rufous margins to the feathers of the under surface, but the head is
dark greyish-brown, very little lighter than the back; the sides of face, throat, and chest are ashy,
only slightly contrasting with the blackish breast (Lifu, “ not breeding,” Aug. 20, 1878: E. L.
Layard).
The specimens described are the typical ones in the Seebohm Collection. The adult male
described and figured in the Plate was obtained by Mr. E. L. Layard at Kepenche, on the Island of
Lifu, on the 23rd of August, 1878, and the female was procured on the 19th of the same month;
they are both in the Seebohm Collection. ,[R. B. g j
m k