108 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of wild sunflower, of which they seem to be very fond. It is astonishing how 

 soon the young chicks learn to fly, and well, too, and how quickly they can 

 hide and scatter at the first alarm note of the mother bird, which invariably 

 tries by various devices to draw the attention of the intruder to herself and 

 away from her young. A comparatively small leaf, a bunch of grass, anything 

 in fact will answer their purpose; you will scarcely be able to notice them 

 before they are all securely hidden, and unless you should have a well-trained 

 dog to assist you, the chances are that you will fail to find a single one, even 

 when the immediate surroundings are comparatively open. After the young 

 broods are about half grown, they spend the greater portion of the day, and I 

 believe the night as well, among the shrubbery in the creek bottoms, feeding along 

 the side hills in the early hours of the morning and evening. During the heat 

 of the day they keep close to the water, in shady trees and the heavy under- 

 growth. They walk to their feeding grounds, but in going to water they 

 usually fly down from the side hills. 



Plumages. — In the downy chick the head and underparts vary from 

 " cream color " to " ivory yellow " ; the crown is mottled with black 

 and a little " hazel," and the auriculars are spotted with black ; the 

 upperparts are variegated with " hazel," " chestnut," dusky, and pale 

 buff. The wings begin to grow soon after the chick is hatched; in 

 a chick 3 inches long they already reach beyond the tail. These first 

 wing feathers and their greater coverts are broadly tipped with 

 white and have white shaft streaks. 



The juvenal plumage comes on very rapidly and is fully acquired 

 before the young bird is half grown, the last of the natal down dis- 

 appearing on the belly and head. In the full juvenal plumage, in 

 which the sexes are alike but in which the racial characteristics begin 

 to show, the crown is mottled with " amber brown " or " hazel " and 

 black; the feathers of the mantle are variously patterned with dull 

 browns, " hazel " or " tawny," and black or dusky, with conspicuous 

 white shaft streaks, broadening at the tip ; the primaries, secondaries, 

 and tertials are barred, notched, or mottled with pale buff on the 

 outer web; the chin and throat are yellowish white and the belly 

 dull white; the breast and flanks are spotted with dusky and pale 

 buff; the rectrices are narrow and pointed, banded, and mottled, 

 much like the plumage of the back. The juvenal flight feathers are 

 molted during July and August ; the molt begins as soon as the last 

 of these feathers are fully grown, or even before that ; and the body 

 molt into the first winter plumage is continuous from August to 

 October. The postjuvenal molt is complete, except that the outer 

 pairs of primaries are retained for a full year. A. J. van Rossem 

 (1925) says of the tail molt: 



The juvenal rectrices are shed at a very early age. The lateral pairs go 

 first, followed soon after by the central pairs. The chicks can be scarcely 

 more than two or three weeks old when the tail-feathers are dropped, and 

 the characteristic post-juvenal tail begins to appear beyond the tips of the 

 coverts. These new tail-feathers are comparatively slow in growing, and reach 

 maturity when the first winter plumage is fully acquired. Their shape and 



