[I]n more genial ages, your Christmas Guisings, Feasts of the Ass, Abbots of Unreason, were a considerable something: since sport they were[.]

The eye-stripe is exactly that: a stripe through the eye. When present, this is a dark line that usually extends from the bill back through the eye. On some birds, it extends just from the eye back, leaving the lores (the area between the eye and the bill) pale and unmarked.

Fazakerley: It cost £76,000 for the specialist removal of 380 tonnes of fly-tipped rubbish that blocked a 100-yard access to the Merseyrail maintenance depot.

The assassin crept into the royal bedchamber only after it was pitch-dark.