294 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



young wheatears leave the nest in about 15 days and can fly rather 

 well at 19 days. Field observations on the fledgling period seem to 

 be lacking, as are exact observations on the length of time that the 

 young are tended by the parents after leaving the nest. Family 

 parties may be seen when the young are well grown, but in England 

 full-grown young birds may be seen alone in August. The Heinroths 

 found that the young could feed themselves well and adequately 

 at 26 days. 



Plumages. — The plumages of the common wheatear are fully 

 described by H. F. Witherby (1938, vol. 2) in the "Handbook of 

 British Birds." The down of the nestling is dark gray, long, and 

 fairly plentiful except on the femoral tract; the mouth is pale orange 

 inside, with no spots; and the flanges externally are very pale yellow. 

 The juvenal plumage (both sexes) is quite distinct from that of adults. 

 The upperparts are grayish to buffish brown, each feather with a 

 pale subterminal spot and narrow dark brown tip, producing a some- 

 what spotted general effect. The white upper tail coverts are usually 

 very narrowly tipped with brownish, the throat creamy white and 

 breast pale buffish, the feathers lightly tipped with brown, giving a 

 rather mottled or obscurely barred appearance. The wing quills, 

 greater coverts, and tail feathers are like those of the adult female. 

 These feathers are retained when the rest of the juvenal plumage is 

 exchanged in August for that of the first winter, in which both sexes 

 resemble the adult female in winter except that occasionally some of 

 the new median coverts have small white wedge-shaped spots at the 

 tips as in the juvenal. The first nuptial plumage, assumed early in 

 the year, is like that of the adults, except that in males the upperparts 

 are a browner, less pure and clear gray, and the wing and tail feathers 

 a browner black. 



Food. — The wheatear, like its allies, is mainly insectivorous. The 

 Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain (1938, vol. 2) gives the following summary: 

 "Coleoptera (small Carabidse (Amara), Staphylinidse, Curculionidae 

 (Otiorrhynchus) , and Elateridse), Diptera (Muscidae, Tipulidas and 

 larvae), Hymenoptera (Bombus and ants), Lepidoptera (Euchelia, 

 Zygsena, larvae of Arctia caia, etc.), Orthoptera (grasshoppers), etc. 

 Also small land Mollusca (Helix, Clausilia), centipedes, and spiders. 

 In winter ants and beetles." 



Though based mainly on British data, this may be taken as giving 

 a good idea of the usual diet. Vegetable food does not seem to have 

 been recorded in Europe, and so it is rather curious to find that 

 the stomach of a single bird recorded by Cottam and Knappen (1939) 

 taken at Hooniah Sound, Alaska, May 12, 1920, contained food 

 almost entirely of plant origin. It included "thirty unidentified 

 bulblets and fragments of many more, totalling 96%, and undeter- 



