> as lemmas

1838 C. Waterton Ess. Nat. Hist. 202 At the close of the breeding season, the drake undergoes a very remarkable change of plumage..and ..is..so completely clothed in the raiment of the female, that it requires a keen..eye to distinguish the one from the other... Thus we may say that once every year..the drake goes, as it were, into an eclipse.

1906 C. W. Beebe Bird 48 The invisible cloak of his brooding mate is dropped over him for a while—his colours vanish, and by a partial moult..the hues of his plumage change to an inconspicuous mottling of brown, hardly distinguishable from the female... This has been happily termed the ‘eclipse’ plumage.

1913 Brit. Birds VII. 2 The short eclipse-feathers..differ so little in general tint from the feathers of the winter- and breeding-plumage..that it is difficult to see what advantage the bird derives from the change.

1913 Brit. Birds VII. 74 The second eclipse is for the most part similar in colouring to the first eclipse,..but these second eclipse Eiders can always be distinguished..from the first eclipse..birds.

1914 Bull. Brit. Ornith. Club 33 67 The pigment for the coloration of the eclipse-dress was beginning to form.

1930 F. B. B. Kirkman & F. C. R. Jourdain Brit. Birds 159 Gadwall..In eclipse much like duck.

1958 D. A. Bannerman Birds Brit. Isles VII. 1 The male [sc. mallard] in eclipse resembles the female closely.

1958 D. A. Bannerman Birds Brit. Isles VII. 31 The adult drake [of the teal] begins to assume eclipse plumage in June..by August the eclipse is complete.