NOTES ON MIGRANTS AND MOULT 29 



NOTES OX MIGRANTS AND MOULT, WITH 

 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MOULTS 

 OF SOME OF OUR SUMMER VISITANTS 



By Claud B. Ticehukst, M.A., '.ALRCS., :m.B.O.U. 



In " The Scottish Natnnrlist" for November 1914, there was a 

 paper by Miss Baxter and Miss Rintoul on "Some Passerine 

 Birds found migrating in Moult," in which I was very interested, 

 and as this is a subject to which I have long given attention 

 I thought it would be of some interest to give m)- experience, 

 which is founded on birds known to have been on migration 

 and which for the most part are in my collection and have 

 either been obtained by myself in Orkney or the coasts of 

 Yorkshire and Suffolk, etc., or have come from St Catherine's 

 Lighthouse (Isle of Wight) or some other Light. The 

 number of specimens cited does not always accurately 

 represent th'2 number of birds handled, as I have received 

 many of the commoner species from the Lights which, not 

 being in moult, were not always preserved. 



The few Corvidae handled (Rooks, Grey Crows, Jackdaws) 

 have not shown any moult, nor have the vast majority of 

 Starlings, though I have seen odd birds retaining some of 

 the juvenile plumage. Of Siskins, six out of seven at the 

 end of September have some feathers of the crown and chin 

 still in quill, and one has a few old juvenile feathers ; one 

 adult at the end of August has the first primary not fully 

 grown. About a score of Redpoles were all apparently fully 

 moulted, and the onl)- Goldfinch, a coastal migrant, was in 

 full body moult, much of the juvenile plumage yet unmoulted. 

 A fair number of Bramblings, Greenfinches and Treesparrows 

 in autumn have been examined, but only a single Greenfinch 

 on 14th October showed any moult, a few feathers on the 

 chin. Of nine Crossbills (old and juvenile birds), five showed 

 some moult of body feathers, while two were still in 

 juvenile plumage. My experience in Buntings coincides with 

 that of Miss Baxter, none of them (Reed, Ortolan, Little, 

 Lapp, and Snow Buntings) showing any moult. Of hundreds 

 Qf Skylarks I have not detected any in moult. 



