36 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The present series of 47 specimens illustrates the plumages of this 

 finch lark and reveals some hitherto unrecorded facts. The plumage 

 stages may be briefly outlined at this point. 



The Juvenal jDlumage is alike in both sexes but averages paler in 

 the males, darker in the females. The feathers of the forehead, 

 crown, and occiput are tawny-brownish subterminally banded with 

 dark sepia, giving the head a dark appearance; lores and super- 

 ciliaries pure cinnamon-buff; a narrow band across the nape also 

 cinnamon-buff; scapulars, interscapulars, back, rump, and upper tail 

 coverts varying from tawny-olive to Saccardo's umber, tipped with 

 pale buffy, the tips being very narrow on the interscapulars and up- 

 per back; central pair of rectrices fuscous-brown broadly edged all 

 around with buffy white ; the outermost pair pale ashy brownish gray 

 with a pale fuscous smudge on the inner web; the rest of the tail 

 feathers dark fuscous narrowly tipped with whitish; upper wing 

 coverts Saccardo's umber, broadly edged with buffy white; remiges 

 fuscous-brown, narrowly margined with pale buff; underparts whit- 

 ish, the breast, sides, and flanks heavily marked and washed with 

 dull tawny-brown ; under wing coverts blackish gray. 



This plumage is worn for about a year and is then replaced by a 

 complete molt which brings on the subadult plumage. This differs 

 from the preceding plumage in that it is more uniformly tawny- 

 brown above and lacks the scalloped appearance characteristic of 

 the upperparts of juvenal birds, and has the breast and sides more 

 definitely streaked with dull brownish gray. This plumage appears 

 to be worn for about a year, when it is replaced by the adult plumage. 

 This molt is also a complete one, and is unusual in that it appears 

 to begin with the feathers of the upper abdomen (a region that is 

 usually among the last to be affected by ecdysis). The molt then 

 spreads to the nape, occiput, and middle of the throat and then to 

 the under tail coverts. The new remiges and rectrices do not begin to 

 appear until the body molt is practically completed. The new wing 

 quills are much darker than those of the juvenal plumage, so that 

 it is easy to tell them apart even in a skin. 



Adult males vary considerably in coloration. The white crown 

 patch is only one and a half times as long as the eye in one bird, 

 while in another it is more than three times as long. The dark 

 nuchal band just posterior to the white one is wholly lacking in 

 one specimen, is deep black in another, and reddish brown like the 

 top of the head in most individuals. The brown of the head, chin, 

 and throat varies from liver brown, dark bay, and auburn to dark 

 blackish brown. In some birds the chin and throat are lighter and 

 brighter than the forehead and crown, while in others the opposite 

 is true. 



