LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 139 



chamois colored stripes above the eyes are well marked and often 

 confluent on the forehead. All of these colors fade out to paler 

 and grayer shades as the bird grows older. 



The Hank feathers are the first to appear, then the mottled feathers 

 of the breast and belly, together with the scapular and head plumage, 

 then the tail and lastly the wings. Birds in my collection, as large 

 as blue-winged teal, collected July 17 and 18 in Manitoba, are still 

 down}'' on the back of the neck and rump, with the wing quills just 

 bursting the sheaths; they evidently would not be able to fly until 

 fully grown in August. In this first plumage the sexes are alike, but 

 the male is slightly larger. 



Millais (1902) gives the following full account of the progress 

 toward maturity: 



By the middle of September we see the molt beginning, and from this date till 

 the following February there is no surface-feeding duck whose plumage change 

 progresses so slowly. In its ordinary course there is little difference between Sep- 

 tember and January, but toward the end of the latter month a big flush of new 

 feathers takes place, either on the whole of the breast down to the vent, or amongst the 

 feathers of the lower neck, where a few pure white feathers appear. In very advanced 

 birds the molt extends over the whole of the lower neck and breast. By the middle 

 of March, numbers of the dark-green feathers begin to show themselves on the cheeks, 

 and in April there is an accession of white feathers on the scapulars. In May and 

 June the whole plumage continues to trend toward maturity, and many new feathers 

 which have come in the plumage on the scapulars and sides of the neck are changing 

 color all the time, from a half compromise with the old first plumage to that of the 

 adult bird. Nevertheless, the whole bird can not be said to be anything like com- 

 plete, and still undergoes feather recoloration and molt until the full and complete 

 molt of the eclipse takes place at the beginning of July. 



The young drake then molts the wings for the first time in August, and, passing 

 through the usual autumnal color change and molt, arrives at a plumage dull and 

 incomplete, yet resembling that of the adult male. Thus we see that in gaining 

 adult dress, this bird takes the same time as the widgeon, namely, about 17 months. 

 His plumage, however, so far as my experience goes, is never absolutely p(»rfect 

 until the third season. In that year his full breeding dress seems to attain perfec- 

 tion earlier than at any previous season. Amongst those that I have kept in confine- 

 ment from immaturity the bill seemed blacker, and all the colors of the plumage 

 more brilliant, when they reached this age. Male shovelers of 21 months old gener- 

 ally have a number of arrowhead-brown bars on the sides of the white breast shield 

 and upper scapulars. The presence of these broad-arrow marks on the white chest 

 must, however, not be taken as indisputable evidence of immaturity, for many per- 

 fectly adult males retain year after year one or two of these markings, whilst others 

 have a wholly white shield. It will nevertheless be found that these markings, 

 together with a sandy-edged breast, are constant signs of difference between the 

 young and the old males; for in the first spring the immatures of all the surface 

 feeders, except the mallard, whose appearance is largely due to condition and feed- 

 ing, always lack the color, size, and finish of the perfectly adult drake. 



Similar changes take place in the young female, a complete new 

 dress being acquired, except on the wings, by January, in which 

 young birds can be distinguished from old birds by their dark 



