566 BULLETIN 18 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



April 9 (1936) on Phu Kha. I have found it both in semicultivated 

 lowland districts and on the hills to 5,000 feet (Phu Kha and Doi 

 Chiang Dao). 



This species avoids the centers of population but profits by a small 

 degree of cultivation and especially by the conditions which follow 

 its abandonment. On Phu Kha and on Doi Chiang Dao, I found 

 it numerous at illicit gardens of the opium poppy (Papaver somnif- 

 erum), keeping to the ground beneath the plants, where it fed on 

 seeds dropping from the dehiscing capsules; at these places it was 

 accompanied by Emberiza pusilla. Near the primitive settlement 

 of Ban Muang Sum, where, late in December 1936, a locally abundant 

 species of bamboo had burst into spectacular bloom, it occurred in 

 extraordinary numbers along with Emberiza rutila and E. a. ornata. 

 I suspect that the flocks wander widely in search of such bounty 

 and that they may accordingly appear wherever, in sufficiently wild 

 country, the suitable conditions temporarily prevail. The usual notes 

 in winter are a conversational twittering but, during the first two 

 weeks of April, on Phu Kha, the males were already rendering a 

 soft, sweet, whistled song from low trees at the edge of the 

 plantations. 



No sign of molt is shown by my specimens, and Smith's bird from 

 Doi Ang Ka, if correctly sexed, is the only male wearing a dress like 

 that of the female. 



De Schauensee has noted (1934) that his examples had the irides 

 dark brown; the bill horny gray or plumbeous-horn; the feet, toes, 

 and claws brown. 



The old male, in winter plumage, is somewhat variable but ordi- 

 narily has the forehead, crown, nape, rump, and upper tail coverts 

 carmine-rose; the feathers of the mantle maroon, inconspicuously 

 edged with olivaceous-brown ; the feathers of the wings and tail deep 

 brown, their exposed parts very narrowly edged with a brownish pink, 

 the upper wing coverts also broadly tipped with the same color to 

 form two inconspicuous wing bars; the underparts rose (often some- 

 what mottled with carmine on the chin, throat, and upper breast), 

 this color paling posteriorly to become almost white or pale buff in the 

 region of the vent and on the under tail coverts. The adult female has 

 the entire upperparts brown, more or less strongly suffused with 

 olivaceous-buff, each feather of the crown and mantle with an ill- 

 defined blackish center to give a broadly streaked appearance; the 

 feathers of the wings and tail deep brown, their exposed parts very 

 narrowly edged with olivaceous-buff, the upper wing coverts also 

 broadly tipped with buff or buffy white to form two bars ; the under- 

 parts brownish buff, albescent on the center of the throat and lower 

 abdomen and on the under tail coverts, the feathers of the chin, throat, 



