94 BULLETIN 113, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Plumages. — The downy young is " drab gray " above variegated 

 with " avellaneous " or other shades of buff. Some individuals are 

 grayer and others are brighter buff in color. The lower parts are 

 lighter colored, paling to " tilleul buff " on the center of the breast ; 

 sometimes the breast is bright, clear, " avellaneous " buff in newly 

 hatched young, the colors fading as the youngster grows. The back 

 is heavily spotted with " fuscous black," and the head and throat 

 with pure black. 



By the time that it is fully grown, at an age of about 2 months, 

 the young bird has assumed its juvenal or first real plumage, in 

 which it is heavily mottled above with " hair brown " and pale 

 " avellaneous " ; the feathers of the lower back and the scapulars are 

 " clove brown " centrally, broadly edged with " avellaneous " or 

 " wood brown " ; the cheeks are plain " hair brown " ; and the crown 

 is " hair brown " streaked with " light buff." This plumage is worn 

 but a short time and is replaced in the fall by the first winter 

 plumage, which is acquired by a partial molt, involving part, or 

 perhaps all, of the contour feathers, but not the wings and tail. I 

 am inclined to think that part of this change is effected by wear and 

 fading of the brown edgings. 



The first winter plumage, deep blackish brown, mottled with gray- 

 ish white, with the uniform dark primaries and rectrices, and with 

 the bill wholly dusky, is worn throughout the first year or until the 

 first postnuptial molt, when the bird is about 13 or 14 months old. 

 A complete molt then occurs, at which time the slaty blue mantle 

 is, at least partially, acquired, and the bill becomes yellow on the 

 basal half. The new primaries are still wholly black and the tail 

 wholly black or mottled with white near the base. The contour 

 feathers or head and underparts are still mottled with dusky, but 

 become lighter during the year by wear and fading. There is much 

 brown still remaining in the wing-coverts. During the second spring 

 there is a steady advance toward maturity, with great individual 

 variation, the molt beginning as early as April in some cases. At 

 this second postnuptial molt, which is complete, the wings of the 

 adult, with black primaries tipped with white, are acquired, but there 

 is sometimes more or less brown in the wing coverts ; the tail becomes 

 white with a subterminal black bar; the white body plumage ap- 

 pears, though it is much clouded with dusky in the fall; and the 

 bill still remains dark at the tip. The fully adult plumage seems 

 to be acquired perhaps a year later, when the bird is 3 years of age ; 

 this, of course, is characterized by the pure white tail and the yellow 

 bill. Some birds, otherwise adult, during the fourth winter, have 

 more or less dusky mottling in the tail, and some lack the subapical 

 white spot, or have only a small one, on the outer primary. As these 

 birds and those with the black-banded tail and brown wing coverts 



