240 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



and middle rectrices sooty blackish, faintly glossed with purplish, 

 the feathers of rump sometimes indistinctly margined with grajash; 

 remaining rectrices light brownish gray with white shafts and (some- 

 times at least) margined terminally with white; lesser and middle 

 wing-coverts deep brownish gray, darker and faintly glossed with 

 purplish centrally and margined terminally with grayish white or 

 pale gray, the greater coverts similar but tipped with pure white; 

 secondaries like greater coverts but more narrowly tipped with 

 white, the innermost (proximal) ones mostly white; primaries and 

 primary coverts dusky grayish brown, the proximal primaries edged, 

 especially toward base, with wliite; shaft of outermost and proximal 

 primaries white, of the intermediate ones more or less tinged with 

 brownish gray; a superciliary stripe of grayish white, narrowly 

 streaked with dusky, beneath this a broad stripe, involving lores, 

 suborbital region, and auriculars, of grajdsh dusky streaked with, 

 paler; malar region, chin and thi'oat white, or grayish white, nar- 

 rowly streaked with dusky, the chin, however (sometimes upper 

 throat also), immaculate; foreneck and chest more broadly streaked 

 with dusky, the breast grayish white or pale grayish irregularly 

 spotted with dusky; rest of under parts white, the sides streaked 

 and spotted with dark grayish, the under tail-coverts narrowly 

 streaked with dusky; axillars and under wing-coverts white, the 

 more anterior of the latter, together with those along edge of wing, 

 spotted with brownish gray; bill dusky terminally, brownish (yel- 

 lowish in life) basally; iris dark brown; legs and feet dull yellowish 

 in life. 



Winter plumage. — Above gray (approximately light mouse gray, 

 quaker drab, or light purplish gray), nearly uniform on head and 

 ileck, the scapulars, interscapulars, and tcrtials sooty blackish 

 faintly glossed with purplish and broadly margined with gray; a 

 whitish crescent on lower eyelid and an indistinct whitish spot on 

 lores, between which and anterior angle of eye the gray is darker; 

 chin and upper throat white, the latter broadly streaked with pale 

 gray; middle foreneck nearly plain pale gray; chest and upper 

 breast brownish gray, the feathers margined with white, these white 

 margins becoming gradually broader posteriorly; otherwise as in 

 summer. 



Young. — Similar to the summer adult, but scapulars and inter- 

 scapulars lacking the lateral ochraceous or buffy indentations and the 

 pale margins rather more regular or more distinct, the pale margins 

 to wing-coverts broader and more or less buffy, the hindneck and 

 cheeks uniform bro\\Tiish gray. 



Downy young. — Above mottled or marbled with blackish and 

 buffy brown or wood brown, the hindneck pale grayish buffy mottled 

 with grayish dusky, the back and rump dotted with whitish; fore part 



