Figure 2.
This specimen was shot in the same year as the last, at Honingham, in Norfolk, and is also in the Norwich Museum. The uniform dark brown plumage of the last bird is here broken into patches of a more yellowish tint. The head, breast and belly are of a light brown, with streaks and blotches of a darker colour. The wings dark brown with light tips. The quills, which are nearly black, have also light tips. The tail is almost like that of the last, but of a more yellow brown, with a light shade of which colour it is also tipped, and the latter mark is found in all the remaining birds.
Figure 3.
This bird was taken at Yarmouth, in the same year as the two that precede it, and is now in my own possession. The feathers on the top of the head, and the neck, are dark brown, with light tips, giving these parts of the bird a mottled appearance. The space between the beak and the eye, and around the eye, is dark ash grey. There is a large patch of dark brown on the breast, and the patches on the thighs and under parts of the last specimen, are here broken into bars. The wings are also tipped with light brown, which, upon the quill-feathers and secondaries, approaches to white. The tail resembles that of the bird last described.
Figure 4.
This figure is from a foreign specimen, now in the possession of Mr. Heysham, of Carlisle: it was said to be a male. The whole head is of a light ash grey; the beak and wings dark brown tipped with a lighter colour; the quills tipped with light brown; the whole of the under parts and thighs white, barred with brown. The tail is nearly like that of the last, but has a fourth bar, or rather several patches in the form of a bar, on the upper end; it is tipped with light yellow brown. Birds in this state are, I believe, considered by some (as far as regards the head) to be varieties, and are distinguished by the name of "capped buzzards." But may not the grey head, which has given rise to that name, be one of the regular changes incidental to this species? I do not see why it should be considered as a mere accidental variety, more than the barred plumage, with which it is equally well known, and appears to be usually found. For I think that in the accidental varieties (by which I understand varieties produced by change of food, or domestication, and which cannot be traced to any periodical change of plumage), which occur in the colour of birds, the
