LIFB HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICA^T WILD FOWL. 65 



birdsjmigbt be expected to breed in this plumage, as the mallards 

 do. At the first postnuptial molt, which is complete in August, it 

 would then assume a plumage indistinguishable from adults, or nearly 

 so, characterized by the yellow bill, the feathers of the pileum edged 

 with grayish or fulvous, the throat and chin wholly spotted with 

 blackish, and the red legs and toes. All of these characters probably 

 become more pronounced in very old birds and perhaps the many 

 puzzling intermediates are birds of the second year. There is another 

 character which seems to be more pronounced in old birds, of the 

 red-legged type, and that is the v/hite tips of the greater wing cov- 

 erts, forming a narrow white border of the speculum, which is con- 

 spicuous in older birds and either lacking or inconspicuous in birds of 

 the first year. 



As to the evidence in the case let us consider briefly a few salient 

 points. The strongest claim that the red-legged black duck has to 

 recognition as a distinct subspecies is based on the well-established 

 fact that nearly, if not quite, all the early migrants are brown-legged 

 birds and that very few, if any, of the large, red-legged birds are 

 seen or shot much before the 1st of October, the heavy flight coming 

 after the middle of that month and presumably from farther north. 

 This claim is somewhat weakened when we consider that the great 

 bulk of the species nest far north of the points where observations 

 have been made and records kept and that undoubtedly the younger 

 and more tender birds migrate first and the older and hardier birds 

 later, as is the case with some other species of ducks. In this con- 

 nection Dr. Charles W. Tovvnscnd (1905) writes: 



Assuming, for the sake of argument, that ruhripes is merely the adult male of ob- 

 scura, it is interesting to note the similarity in seasonal distribution, between these 

 two forms and the adult male red-breasted merganser as compared with tlie very 

 differently plumaged females and ^immature. In both cases the small, obscurely 

 dressed birds come first during the early autumn, while the large showy birds come 

 in late September and in October. In both, these large birds are abundant in the 

 winter, and the smaller ones are less common, while in both, the two forms appear 

 again in the spring. The remark of Doctor Phillips that "the first flight of black duclcs 

 consists mostly of young and often imperfectly feathered birds" is intercRting in 

 this connection. 



In order to have any standing a subspecies must be shown to have 

 a distinct breeding range, which has not been demonstrated in this 

 case. Mr. Brewster (1902) was able to find only four specimens of 

 breeding ducks which he could unhesitatingly refer to the red-legged 

 race, one from Ungava, northern Labrador, one from Moose Factory 

 on James Bay, one from Cape Hope, Severn lliver, and one from 

 Fort Churchill. One of these seems doubtful, the Ungava bird, 

 which the collector, Mr. Lucien M. Turner, describes in his original 

 notes, as follows: "In the si)ecimen procured by me the bill is of a 

 dusky olive color: the nail black; the tarsus and toes deep orange 



