The more usual procedure is that the abdominal patch of autumnal plumage is lost during incubation, and is then quickly replaced by a renewal of the Peculiar
growth on
abdomen.autumnal feathers when the spring plumage is also being shed. There remains, however, in the majority of birds, a very quaint abdomen. growth of belated spring plumage, consisting of buff and black-barred feathers in two lines down each side of the centre of the naked patch, as though, for some occult reason, the intention to grow "spring-plumage" feathers upon this area had never been altogether lost. This peculiar persistence of belated intention shows itself as a patch of yellow feathers made up of the two lines of feather growth in the midst of a much broader area of the autumn red pigmented feather which one would expect to find all over the abdomen (Pl. xiv.). It is conceivable that a small persistent remnant such as this, having no obvious connection with the surrounding plumage at the time, or with the habits of the bird, or with the seasons, may yet have something to do with the third or lost "eclipse" plumage which is still to be found in the grey plumage of the Ptarmigan, but is almost completely lost in the case of the Red Grouse
In July the summer plumage of healthy hens is much worn out, frayed at the edges, and very definitely faded, and the feathers are already July. dropping out. On the chin, throat, and fore-neck, new red feathers of the autumn plumage, looking rich and dark, are already making their appearance. The back is as it was, but faded, and the flanks are still conspicuously broad-barred with buff and black; but the abdominal bare patch is now growing new autumn-plumage feathers with great rapidity from the centre outwards. The primaries and secondaries have now commenced to moult. There may be in July, in the hen, as many as six or eight old primaries in each wing with frayed tips, still to be renewed.
Precocious young birds of the year can still at once be distinguished from hens in moult, because in the former the dark red-brown black-lined autumn Distinction
between
young and
old birds. plumage is on the flanks, while the broad-barred buff and black, and rather worn-out chicken feathers are in the centre of the abdomen. In the adult the distribution is reversed. The broad-barred buff and black feathers of the spring plumage are on the flanks, and the redder fine-barred autumn-plumage is appearing in the centre(compare Pl. xii.). Figs, a, c, g, h, k, and n, with Fig. d.). In skin No. 284 there seems to be an unusual compromise in a very backward hen, owing to disease. The compromise is between the
