(1) The neck, from just below the head, with the throat, breast, and ventral surface, as far as the legs, a beautiful creamy white; the rest dark, as in the ordinary dark form, but I was not careful to note the precise shade; the crown of the head—and this, it seems, is universal—sufficiently dark to appear black. This bird represents, I think, the extreme of the light or ornate form, in which dark and light are almost equally divided.
(2) The light colouring extends, speaking roughly, over the same parts, but is very much less bright and pure. It might be described as a dun-cream or cream-dun, the two shades seeming to struggle for supremacy. The cream prevails on the neck, the dun on the other parts; but even the neck is of a much duller shade than in the bird just described (No. 1). There are parts of the breast where the original sombre hue, a little softened, encroaches, cloudily, upon the lighter surface. These two birds cannot, certainly, be described as more or less handsome, merely, in the same colouring. The lighter surface, at any rate, is plainly different in shade, also its amount and distribution, though in a less degree.
(3) Another bird is much like this last one (No. 2), but there is, here, a distinct, broad, dunnish space, dividing the throat and breast parts, making, of course, a very palpable difference.
(4) Another bird—one of two standing together—is the common uniformly dark form, except that the neck and throat just below the head is, for about an inch, very much lighter, making a considerable approach to cream without quite attaining it. This light part is conspicuous in the one bird—this that I have been describing (No. 4)—but not in the other (No. 5) that it is standing by.
(5) This other one might pass for the ordinary dark form, but on examining it through the glasses a lighter, though less salient, collar is distinctly visible.
(6) In a third bird, not far off these two (Nos. 4 and 5) the whole colouring, from immediately below the crown of the head—which seems always to be black or very dark—is of a uniform brown-drab or brown-dun colour, there being not the slightest approach to a lighter collar, or any lightness elsewhere, except, as in every bird, without exception, on the quill feathers of the wings as seen in flight.
(7) In another bird the breast and ventral surface is of a delicate silvery cream, or creamy silver, something like that on the same parts of the Great Crested Grebe. On the sides of the neck, and just below the chin it is the same, perhaps a little less silvered; but between these two spaces, and so between the chin and breast, a zone of faint brown or dun, somewhat broken and cloudy, pushes itself forward from the wings, thus breaking the continuity of the light surface by the strengthening of a tendency which is, perhaps, just traceable even in the lightest specimens. Besides this, a similar clouded space is continued downwards from the back of the head, first in a diminishing quantity, and then, again, broadening out, till it joins the upper body-colour. So that here only a little of the nape is white, hardly more than what may still be described as the two sides of the neck. This is a very pretty and delicate combination.
(8) Close beside this last bird (No. 7) is a uniformly dark brown one; and
(9) Not far off, on the other side of it, one which exhibits the same sort of general effect, in a dark, smoky dun. This latter bird would generally pass as representing the dark form, and, with fluctuations in either direction, dark or light, it does represent the common form. Nevertheless, it is both light and varied compared with the extreme or uniform dark brown form beside it (No. 8), which appears to me to be the least common one of all, less so than the extreme light one (No. 1) at the other end. When I say uniform, however, I do not mean to include the crown of the head or tips of the wings, which are always darker than the rest of the plumage, nor yet that lighter shade which is on the primary quills of every individual, but only seen in flight. These exceptions must always be understood, and, moreover, the expression uniform is not to be construed with mathematical accuracy, but only as conveying the general effect upon the eye.
(10) A bird that from the dark crown of the head to the dark tips of the wings is, above and below, a uniform dark, browny dun, yet some washes lighter than the uniformly brown one (No. 8) that I have spoken of.