268 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 paRT i 



eggs half standing and literally bursting with melody. * * * The 

 male frequently feeds the female while she is incubating, and when 

 not so engaged is perched on the top of some near by tree singing 

 his best. 



"Incubation requires about thirteen days and the young leave 

 in fourteen more. Both parents feed them for a considerable while 

 after they have left the nest." 



Francis H. Allen (MS.) wrote in his notes for June 25, 1911: "A 

 young one in a shad bush, fed by its father, makes a constant sweet 

 little pee-vjee note. The old bird gathers the June-berries industri- 

 ously for a long time, doubtless swallowing many, but apparently 

 retaining some in the mouth or gullet, for the feeding process is a 

 prolonged one. The young when being fed is very eager and vocif- 

 erous and follows its parent up when the latter starts away. The 

 old bird chews the berries, sometimes if not always, and sometimes 

 picks off only part of one at a time, perhaps when the fruit is not 

 ripe enough to be easily detached. The pee-ivee note seems to be 

 characteristic. I hear it from others of the young. The syllables 

 are about evenly accented." 



Plumages. — Dwight (1900) describes the juvenal plumage of the 

 eastern purple finch as follows: "Above, wood-brown, broadly 

 streaked with olive-brown and showing whitish streaks if the feathers 

 be disarranged so as to expose a lighter portion. Below, dull white 

 streaked with paler olive-brown, least on the chin, throat and middle 

 of abdomen and crissum, the last two areas often unmarked. An 

 indistinct whitish superciliary line. Wings and tail deep olive-brown, 

 edged with pale buff deepest and broadest on tertiaries and wing 

 coverts. * * *" 



Minor exceptions may be taken to Dwight's description, according 

 to C. H. Blake (1955). The throat is completely streaked but the 

 streaks are very narrow. In fact, all the streaking of the under 

 parts in juvenal plumage is narrower than in first winter plumage. 

 Finally, among birds handled in eastern Massachusetts, streaks occur 

 on the juvenal under tail coverts in nearly 90 percent of the 

 individuals. 



The first winter plumage is acquired by a partial postjuvenal 

 molt involving the contour plumage and the wing coverts, but not 

 the rest of the wings or the tail. This is not very diflFerent from the 

 juvenal plumage, but "the streaks are bolder, the brown usually 

 with a greenish yeUow tinge merging into the buffy edgings." 

 (Dwight, 1900.) 



In eastern Massachusetts, according to Blake, the inception of 

 postjuvenal molt is quite evenly distributed over the period from 

 August 4 to September 8. The duration of this molt is probably 



