BIRDS OF NORTH AXD MIDDLE AMERICA. 65 



VANELLUS VANELLUS (Linnjeus). 



LAPWING. 



Adults in breeding j^lumage (sexes alike). ° — Pilciim (including crest), 

 anterior portion of loriil and malar regions, chin, throat, foreneck, 

 and entire chest uniform, faintly glossy, blue-black; sides of head 

 and neck white, passing into gray on hindneck; back, scapulars, and 

 tertials metallic bronzy green changing to coppery purple on outer 

 scapulars; wing-coverts dark purplish blue, changir:g to greenish, 

 becoming decidedly green on gi-eater coverts; remiges dull black, the 

 tips of the three outer primaries, for an inch or more, light gray with 

 white shafts; rump like back but less strongly metallic; upper tail- 

 coverts cinnamon-rufous; tail with basal half and tip white, the middle 

 (subterminal) portion dull black, this color decreasing (and the white 

 correspondingly increasing) in extent to the outer rectrices, nearly 

 (sometimes quite) disappearing on outermost pair; under parts, 

 posterior to chest, immaculate white, passing iiito light cinnamon- 

 rufous on under tail-coverts; bill black; iris dark brown; legs and 

 feet lake red or fleshy red (in life). 



Winter jylumage. — Similar to the summer plumage but with the 

 black on anterior portion of loral and malar regiojis replaced b}^ white; 

 a broad superciliary stripe, chin, and entire throat white, and the 

 white along sides of hindneck and occiput tinged with buff. 



Young. — Similar to winter adults but color of hindneck, back, 

 rump, etc., scarcely metallic olive or brownish olive, all the feathers 

 tipped or terminally margined with light rusty or tawny-olive, as are 

 also the wing-coverts; black of chest much duller, and crest absent 

 or but slightly developed. 



Doitmy young. — U])per parts grayish brown (drab) coarsely mottled 

 or marbled with black, interrupted by a broad band of immaculate 

 pale brownish buff or buffy white across hindneck; lower portion of 

 lores, anterior half (approximately) of malar region, chin and throat 

 immaculate dull white or buffy white; suborbital and auricular regions 

 pale buffy brown or pale drab with irregular blotches and streaks of 

 black along lower edge, connected, more or less, with a blackish band 

 across lower foreneck or upper chest; rest of under parts immaculate 

 buffy white, strongly tinged posteriorly with brownish buff. 



a In TUill. Brit. Orn. Club, xiv, 1904, 62, Mr. F. W. Frohawk distinguishes the sexes 

 by a (iifference in the wing- formula; the male having the second primary (from outside) 

 ec^ual to the fourth, the third longest, the first equal to the seventh, while the female 

 has the second and third equal and longest, the first equal to the fourth. I have not 

 been able, however, to verify this supposed difference in the sexes, some specimens 

 having neither formula. 



40017— 19— Bull. 50, pt S 



