16 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The molts in this species are peculiar and deserve mention. A 

 bird, taken on March 11, recorded in his notes by Mearns as a 

 subadult male, but cataloged as a female (Smithsonian African 

 expedition, under Theodore Roosevelt) has * * * the under 

 side of the head and neck paler than in adult males * * *. The 

 tail is complete and handsomely fluted, but every wing quill has 

 been synchronously molted, the incoming quills to replace those 

 recently shed being from 25 to 50 millimeters in length, only the tips 

 of the webs appearing beyond the calamus. Evidently the genus 

 AnMnga molts all of the wing quills at the same time, as in the 

 case of the ducks." (E. A. Mearns.) The tail molt is likewise 

 peculiar but may be subject to more variation. The female 

 (U.S.N.M. 218283) from Black Abaya Lake has molted and replaced 

 the innermost and the three outermost pairs of rectrices, and, to 

 judge from the development of the new feathers, the middle pair were 

 the first to be shed, then two pairs were skipped and the outer three 

 pairs molted. This order is borne out by a male in the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology (M.C.Z. 56404) in which only the innermost 

 and the two outermost pairs were shed. In this individual the new 

 central pair are fully grown, as long as the next pair (old feathers) 

 while the new outermost rectrices are only several inches long and 

 the next pair not yet sprouted. 



In this connection it is interesting to note that Granvik ^^ writes 

 that while the body feathers are molted rapidl}'' and during a 

 definite time, the remiges and rectrices may be molted all year 

 round, " * * * go that, strictly speaking, all individuals are in 

 molt." 



Dr. James P. Chapin has sent me the following notes from his 

 manuscript on the birds of the Belgian Congo, from which he 

 has generously allowed me to quote. In describing a molting bird he 

 records that all the remiges are shed at once as in the case recorded 

 above by Mearns. 



* * * The renewal of the rectrices is different. The full length of the 

 tail is preserved, alternate ijairs of rectrices being dropped * * *. 



Notwithstanding the shortness or virtual lack of the tail in many diving 

 birds, it would seem that this appendage is of real utility to the cormorants 

 and grebes, so that its functional completeness is preserved even during the 

 period when the adult snakebirds are flightless. 



Considerable variation in color occurs in this species. A female 

 from Lake Edward, eastern Belgian Congo (M.C.Z. 98066) repre- 

 sents one extreme. It has a broad, distanct black band on either 

 side of the head and neck just above the white band, beginning back 

 of the eye and extending nearly to the base of the long neck, giving 



I'Journ. f. Ornith., 1923, Sonderhcft, p. 31. , 



