1258 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



My own studies at Stillwater, Okla., over an 18-year period indicate 

 that much of this variation and intergradation in winter plumages 

 is due to sheer individual variation, some to minor sex differences. 

 Between February 1948 and May 1965, I banded at Stillwater a total 

 of 1,722 Harris' sparrows, of which 121 individuals (50 banded as 

 adults, 66 as immatures) returned a total of 204 times from 1 to 6 

 years after banding. Observations on their plumages may be sum- 

 marized as follows: 



Crown. — Adult birds (the 50 banded as adults and all returning 

 birds) showed no consistent sequence from year to year in the amount 

 of edging on the crown feathers or the amount of black, unveiled 

 crown. Some birds banded as immatures returned the following 

 winter (R-l) with crowns only lightly edged with gray and as much 

 as half jet black. Others returned consistently year after year 

 (R-l-2-3-4) with a heavy veiling over the crown and only a small 

 black area on the forehead. Some varied from winter to winter 

 from heavy to light and vice versa. 



Superciliary stripe. — None of the returns had the broad, buffy 

 "eyebrows" almost meeting on the forehead that characterize the 

 first winter plumage. 



Throat. — Birds whose throats were more than half white, with 

 black flecks, blotches, or patches, usually showed the buffy "eyebrows" 

 and were designated immatures. Adult birds with basically black 

 throats displayed four throat patterns as follows: (1) Throat finely 

 flecked black and white ("salt and pepper"). (2) Throat black with 

 white blotches or patches. (3) Broad or partial white band separating 

 black of throat and chest. (4) Typical adult all-black throat. These 

 patterns occured indiscriminately in R-l birds banded as immatures 

 and in 6-year olds, in very small females (?) and very large males (?) . 



Lores. — Each fall I described in my records a number of birds as 

 conspicuously big and black, or with lores, as well as throat and 

 crown black, almost approximating the black hood of the breeding 

 plumage. Of eight returns so described, all but one had been banded 

 as adults and must have been in at least their third winter. Yet one 

 banded in immature plumage showed the black hood early in the 

 winter of his first return. In other cases I noted R-2 and R-3 birds 

 with buffy lores, so that this appearance of the black hood cannot be 

 associated consistently with old birds. 



My records show that, far more often than not, individual birds 

 retained their particular adult pattern from year to year, through one 

 or more returns. They show no evidence whatever of a 3-year se- 

 quence of plumage patterns from first winter to full adult. 



A single adult bird at Stillwater exhibited a reversal to its immature 

 plumage in the second winter. Banded as an immature Dec. 2, 1962, 



