532 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part i 



variable, pale bluish-green to nearly white, with spots or blotches and 

 sometimes lines of various browns and lavenders, chiefly about the 

 large end; figured by Henry Seebohm in a "History of British Birds" 

 (1885, pi. 19). 



W. G. F. Harris writes: "Four eggs usually comprises a set of the 

 white-winged crossbill but sometimes only three, or as many as five 

 are laid. They are ovate, sometimes tending toward elongate-ovate, 

 and have very httle lustre. The ground is very pale greenish-white, 

 or creamy white, variously spotted and blotched with 'sorghum 

 brown,' 'bay brown,' or 'Vandyke brown,' and occasionally a few 

 scattered spots or scrawls of black. The undermarkings are of pale 

 reddish brown shades, such as 'vinaceous-fawn,' or 'fawn.' On some 

 types the markings are restricted to just the shades of 'fawn.' The 

 spots, generally, are scattered over the entire egg with a slight tendency 

 to become somewhat heavier toward the large end. The measure- 

 ments of 19 eggs average 20.9 by 15.0 millimeters; the eggs showing 

 the four extremes measure 22.0 by 16.0, 18.5 by 14.9 and 20.3 by 1S.5 

 millimeters." 



Young, — Referring to a nest containing young, James Bond (1938), 

 says: "The young had hatched about three days prior to its dis- 

 covery. They were covered with down and it was noted that the 

 inside of their mouths was rather bright purplish red in color." 



A. Brooker Klugh (1926) watched a pair of adults feeding four 

 young. He says: "The parents fed the young by regurgitation and 

 apparently on comminuted seeds. * * * Three of the young went 

 down beside the laboratory, sat down under the salt-water drip 

 from the experimental jars on the laboratory roof, drank some of 

 the salt water, and then went to sleep. I went down and caught 

 two of them in my hands. They were in the juvenal plumage and 

 their mandibles had not yet started to cross." 



F. H. Allen writes Mr. Bent of observing a female feeding young 

 by picking seed from a green spruce cone. 



Plumages. — J. Dwight (1900), speaking of the male, says the 

 juvenal plumage is acquired by a complete postnatal molt. The 

 whole plumage is a dull grayish white thickly streaked with clove- 

 brown, the feather edgings grayish, but buffy on the back, rump, 

 and abdomen. The wings and tail are a dull black, the primaries, 

 secondaries, and tertiaries narrowly and the tertiaries and wing 

 coverts broadly edged with buffy white forming two distinct wing 

 bands at tips of greater and median coverts. The bill and feet are 

 broTvnish black. The birds are decidedly blacker than Loxia curvi- 

 rostra minor in the corresponding plumage. 



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

 molt, probably in September, which involves the body plumage, but 



