142 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



white area is less extensive on the inner web of the primaries in the 

 young than in the adults, and the black terminal borders are larger. 

 Often also the delimitation of the white and black is not sharp in the 

 young where it is distinct in the adult. The outer (reduced) primary 

 is shorter in adults than in young, and all the primaries are more pointed 

 in young than in adults. The rectrices, especially the outer, vary ac- 

 cording to age. The lateral one is narrow and rounded at the end in 

 the young ; it is large and square at the end in the adults. 



The time and order of replacement of the feathers seem to be nearly 

 the same in Western United States as given for western France by 

 Mayaud (1933). There the juvenal molt of body plumage takes place 

 from July to October. The complete annual molt commences near the 

 first of July, reaches its height in August, and ends from mid-September 

 to late in October. Molt of body plumage is very rapid. Molt of the 

 tail commences early and ends sooner than that of the remiges. The 

 two median rectrices fall first, and the replacement proceeds regularly 

 to the lateral ones. The upper and lower caudals fall a little after the 

 beginning of the molt of the rectrices. The molt of the primaries begins 

 very soon and ends very late. Its direction is from the inside out, 

 from the first to the tenth (and eleventh). The secondary remiges molt 

 in three series; the two proximal ones with the ninth and tenth falling 

 in the external-internal direction and the eighth and seventh in the in- 

 ternal-external direction, and a third series, the first to sixth, falling in 

 the external-internal direction. The molt of the secondaries commences 

 after that of the primaries and that of the distal series ends a little 

 after that time. 



Abnormal plumages in the magpie attract more than ordinary interest 

 because of the possibility, which seems almost probability, that some of 

 the existing geographic forms arose by the preservation of this kind of 

 character. Several examples of freakish plumage in the black-billed 

 magpie have been reported: DuBois (1918) on July 20, 1918, near 

 Collins, Mont., saw one "entirely of a grayish- white, or very pale 

 gray color," but exhibiting no definite markings. Rockwell (1910) 

 found two albino magpies in a brood, the balance of which appeared 

 to be normal. Both were pure white except for a slight creamy tint. 

 A specimen mentioned by Svihla (1933) from near Nampa, Idaho, 

 has normal pattern, but the feathers, bill, tarsus, and claws, which are 

 usually black, are rusty-brown in this one. 



Food. — E. R. Kalmbach has made extensive study of magpie food in 

 North America. His published report (1927) is based upon the ex- 

 amination of 547 stomachs, of which 313 were adults and 234 were 

 nestlings. This material is fairly representative of the bird's range and 



