EASTERN MYRTLE WARBLER 245 



the male bird incubating and even engaged in song while on the 

 nest. * * * The natal down rapidly dries and fluffs out on the 

 young birds and is sepia-brown in color. At the end of six to seven 

 days pin feathers begin to appear, and by the twelfth to fourteenth 

 day the young are well advanced in their juvenal plumage and able 

 to scramble out of the nest. Two to three days after leaving the nest 

 they are able to essay short flights." 



Plumages. — Mr. Knight (1908) refers to the natal down as sepia- 

 brown. Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the juvenal plumage, in which 

 the sexes are alike, as "above, the feathers centrally dull black, edged 

 with drab and buffy brown, producing a streaked effect. Below, much 

 whiter but similarly streaked, a tinge of pale primrose-yellow on the 

 abdomen. Wings and tail dull black, edged with drab, palest on 

 primaries and outer rectrices. Two very indistinct buffy white wing 

 bands. Upper and lower eyelids with dull white spots." 



The first winter plumage is acquired by a partial post juvenal molt 

 in August, which involves the contour plumage and the wing coverts, 

 but not the rest of the wings or the tail. This plumage is entirely 

 different from the juvenal and the sexes are only slightly differentiated. 

 Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the young male as "above, sepia-brown, 

 grayer on the back and obscurely streaked with black, the rump and a 

 concealed crown spot lemon-yellow, the upper tail coverts black, 

 broadly edged with plumbeous gray. Wing coverts black, plumbeous 

 edged and tipped with white tinged with wood-brown forming two 

 wing bands. Below, dull white, washed with pale buff on the throat 

 and sides and obscurely streaked on the breast and sides with black, 

 veiled by whitish edgings. Sides of breast with dull yellow patches. 

 Incomplete orbital ring and faintly indicated superciliary stripe white 

 or buffy." He says of the young female : "The black streaking of this 

 dress is less obvious both above and below than in the male, the 

 plumage everywhere is browner, and the crown patch very obscure." 



The extensive prenuptial molt begins early, usually in March, be- 

 fore the birds have left their winter quarters; a few new feathers 

 may be assumed even in late February but most of the molt occurs 

 in April while the birds are migrating ; it is, however, generally com- 

 pleted by the time the birds have reached their breeding grounds. 

 Dr= Dwight (1900) says this molt "involves most of the body plumage 

 and wing coverts, occasionally a tertiary but not the rest of the wings 

 nor the tail. The black and gray of the upper surface, the white 

 wing bars and the yellow crown and rump are new, some of the old 

 upper tail coverts and a part of the feathers of the abdomen and 

 crissum being retained in many cases, those of the back and elsewhere 

 less often. Young and old become practically indistinguishable al- 

 though the young usually have browner and more worn wings and 



981873—53 17 



