1198 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 2 



similar but with darker mesial streaks; tail dark hair brown, the rectrices edged 

 with pale grayish; lesser wing-coverts brownish gray or hair brown with darker 

 centers; middle coverts dusky, tipped with pale buffy; greater coverts dusky 

 centrally, broadly edged with pale buflfy brown, becoming still paler (pale dull 

 buffy or buffy whitish) on terminal margins; tertials dusky, broadly edged on 

 outer web with brownish buffy or light Isabella color, paler on innermost feathers; 

 primaries grayish dusky, narrowly edged with very pale buffy grayish; auricular 

 region light buffy brown or pale wood brown, margined above by a distinct 

 postocular streak of dusky brown and below by a supramalar streak of the same ; 

 malar region dull white or buffy whitish, margined below by a more or less distinct 

 dusky or brownish streak along each side of throat; under parts dull whitish, 

 tinged pale grayish buffy on chest, sides, and flanks; maxilla brown with dusky 

 tip; mandible paler brown; legs and feet very pale brownish. 



Adults in winter. — Similar to the summer plumage, but black streaks on crown 

 narrower, never (?) exceeding the brown ones in width, and plumage more tinged 

 with buffy. 



Immature {young in first winlerf) . — Decidedly more buffy than adults, the back 

 and scapulars with the ground color nearly the same light wood brown or isabella 

 color as the pileum, the latter with the paler median stripe indistinct and buffy 

 instead of grayish, and the black streaks narrower; chest decidedly buffy. 



Plumage variations, I find, are rather usual. Of 70 adult fall 

 plumage skins in the Museum of Comparative Zoology 11 lack one or 

 more of the five head characters described under Field marks. One 

 January skin has a smaU amount of rufous in the crown, J. Van Tyne 

 and G. M. Sutton (1937) write: 'The female taken April 17, 1935, 

 varies from the normal plumage of the Clay-colored Sparrow in the 

 character of the crown which is narrowly streaked with black and 

 almost lacks the median stripe of gray, precisely as in many specimens 

 of Spizella breweri. In fact, on the basis of the color and pattern of 

 the upper parts one would unhesitatingly place it in a series of Spizella 

 breweri rather than among the other specimens of Spizella pallida." 



Laurence C. Binford examined for molt the 23 specimens of S. 

 pallida in the Louisiana State University Museum of Zoology. He 

 writes me that four specimens, September 10 to October 15, show 

 varying degrees of retention of immature ventral streaking. One is 

 molting heavily on back and ear coverts, another has only two new 

 feathers growing in, both on the crown. No molt appears on the other 

 two. Binford says that three early October specimens, probably 

 adults, have apparently just finished a complete molt. All are in 

 fresh plumage, including wings and tail. R. R. Graber (1955) states 

 that stub-tailed pallida and breweri have shown a precocious develop- 

 ment of winter back plumage. Harrison B. Tordoff and Robert M. 

 Mengel (1956) state that two feathers were being replaced in the tail 

 of an immature October 6 bird, which was also in body molt and had 

 some Juvenal feathers on the body and flanks. 



Binford states that some birds have a nearly complete spring molt, 

 involving all portions of the plumage except the primaries. Five 



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