24 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Plumages. — [Author's note: Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the natal 

 down of the robin is "mouse-gray." He gives a full account of the 

 juvenal plumage, but I prefer the more concise description by Mr. 

 Ridgway (1907) as follows: "Head as in adults, but the black duller 

 and white orbital markings less sharply defined, sometimes buffy; 

 back and scapulars grayish brown or olive, the feathers with central 

 or mesial spots or streaks of white or pale buff and blackish tips; 

 rump and upper tail-coverts brownish gray or grayish brown, the 

 feathers sometimes narrowly tipped with blackish; wings and tail as 

 in adults, but wing-coverts with terminal wedge-shaped spots or 

 streaks of pale rusty, buff, or whitish; chin and throat white or pale 

 buffy, margined laterally with a stripe of blackish or line of blackish 

 streaks; underparts cinnamon-rufous, ochraceous-tawny, or buffy 

 ochraceous (sometimes the chest and breast much paler, occasionally 

 whitish), conspicuously spotted with black, the lower abdomen white 

 or pale buffy." There is much individual variation in the amount 

 of rufous on the underparts; some juvenals have the sides of the 

 breast largely as bright rufous as in adults, and others have little or 

 none of this color. 



A postjuvenal molt, involving all the contour plumage, the wing 

 coverts, and tertials, but not the rest of the wings or the tail, takes 

 place from August to October, the date depending largely on the date 

 of hatching. This produces a first winter plumage which is similar 

 to the winter plumages of the adults of the respective sexes, but the 

 colors are duller and more veiled, browner above, head not so dark, 

 and the white spots on the tail feathers are smaller. The first nuptial 

 plumage is produced by wear; much of the white edging on the breast 

 is lost so that the breast becomes redder; the head becomes blacker 

 and the chin clearer black and white. 



Young and old birds become indistinguishable after the next post- 

 nuptial molt, which is complete, in August and September. The 

 sexes are alike in the juvenal plumage, but after that the females are 

 always somewhat duller in color, the upperparts fighter and browner, 

 the head not so black, and the breast paler, often edged with whitish. 



Dr. Harold B. Wood, who has made a thorough study of the white 

 tail markings of eastern robins, tells me that there is great individual 

 variation in the extent and shape of these markings, which are constant 

 from year to year in individual birds. His studies were based on 

 the examination of 162 robins trapped from 1938 to 1943, and the 

 results will be published. 



Albinism is common in the robin. I have seen many partial and 

 some fully albino birds, both in life and in museums. While visiting 

 with Hon. R. M. Barnes, at Lacon, 111., I saw a beautiful perfect 

 albino robin that had been living in his conservatory for some time. 



