44 HISTORY OF THE 



Habitat. Temperate North America; north in the interior to 

 about hititnde 61°, south in winter as far as Guatemala; rare 

 along the Atlantic coast; common in the middle provinces, the 

 Gulf coast, western Mexico and California. 



Sp. Char. "Tail feathers, 24. Malar region completely feathered; color 

 chiefly white; bill, pouch and feet light yellowish or reddish. Adult, in full 

 breeding plumage: Oulmen with a narrow median horny excresence, situated a 

 little anterior to the middle of the culuien, the upper outlines more or less con- 

 vex, the fibers vertical, the size and exact shape variable. Plumage white; 

 sometimes tinged with pale pinkish, the narrow lesser wing coverts and jugular 

 plumes straw yellow or (rarely) purplish buff; primaries dull black, their shafts 

 white toward the base; secondaries dusky, edged both externally and internally 

 with ashy white. Upper part of the nape with a pendent crest of long, narrow, 

 silky, pure-white or pale straw-colored feathers. Bill chiefly orange, paler on 

 the culmen, the nails and edges of the maxilla and mandible more reddish, 

 mandible deeper red than the maxilla, growing almost brick red basally; pouch 

 dirty whitish anteriorly, where suffused with blackish, passing successively 

 through yellow and orange into intense dragon's blood or brick red at the base; 

 lower edges of the mandible sometimes blackish, and side of the mandible 

 sometimes marked, nearly opposite the nifixillary crest, with a somewhat quad- 

 rate black spot; bare skin of the lores and orbital region rich orange yellow; 

 eyelids dark reddish; iris pearl white; legs and feet intense orange red. Adult, 

 during the latter part of the breeding season: Similar to the above, but maxil- 

 lary excrescence wanting (having been cast), and the nuchal crest replaced by 

 a patch of brownish gray. Adult, in fall and winter: Similar to the last, but 

 no grayish patch on the occiput (crest also absent); the bill and feet clear yel- 

 low. Young: Similar to the winter adult, but lesser wing coverts brownish 

 gray centrally, the pileum similarly marked; jugular feathers short and broad, 

 and pure white, like the other feathers of the lower surface; bill, pouch and 

 feet pale yellow. 



"Individual variation, both in size and in the details of coloration, is very 

 considerable in this species. Most descriptions of the perfect adult bird say 

 that the plumage is tinged with peach-blossom pink; but in only a single ex- 

 ample among the very large number examined by us (including both skins and 

 freshly-killed birds) was the faintest trace of this color visible, and that confined 

 to a few feathers of the back. The straw-yellow color of the narrow jugular 

 feathers and lesser wing coverts, however, seems to be always a characteristic 

 of the adult birds, both in winter and summer, though much paler in the former 

 season. The black along the lower edge of the mandible and the squarish spot 

 on its side are not infrequently entirely absent. The maxillary excrescence 

 varies greatly, both in size and shape; frequently it consists of a single piece, 

 nearly as high as long, its vertical outlines almost parallel and the upper outline 

 quite regularly convex, the largest specimen seen being about three inches high 

 by as many in length; more frequently, however, it is very irregular in shape, 

 usually less elevated, and not infrequently with ragged anterior, or even posterior, 

 continuations. This excrescence, which is assumed gradually in the spring, 

 reaches its perfect development in the pairing season, and is dropjicd before or 



