LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 7 



S they were coiiiplotely feathered except for the llieht feathers, which were 

 just beginning to grow. At tliis date the irides were chocohvte brown and tbe 

 legs and toes yellowish. On August 25 the young birds were able to fly. 



Early in the fall, as soon as the young birds have attained their 

 full growth, the first winter plumage begins to develop. This 

 plumage in the male is entirely different from the adult plumage 

 and closely resembles that of the female. The young male may be 

 distinguished from the female by its decidedly larger size; it also 

 has less gray on the breast (which decreases toward spring), the 

 back is darker gray, the head is darker and more or less mottled with 

 dusky, and there is a more or less distinct suggestion of the white 

 loral spot, which increases toward spring. This plumage is worn 

 all through the first winter and spring, with slight and gradual 

 changes toward maturity by a limited growth of new feathers; the 

 head becomes darker and greener, the loral spot whiter, and the 

 scapulars are changed. Individuals vary greatly in the time and 

 extent of these changes. I have a young male in my collection, taken 

 on May 27, which is still in the first winter plumage. In July the 

 young male passes into the eclipse plumage, in wdtich it can be dis- 

 tinguished from the adult by the wings, which are not molted until 

 later. The change from the eclipse into the adult winter plumage 

 is very slow in young birds, lasting well into the winter, and it is 

 not until this molt is completed that old and young birds become 

 indistinguishable. 



The adult male assumes a semieclipse plumage late in July or in 

 August, involving principally the head and neck, which becomes 

 brown and mottled like that of the young male ; the white loral spot 

 partiall}^ disappears; the scapulars resemble those of the young 

 male, and there are brownish feathers in the flanks. This is fol- 

 lowed by a complete molt into the winter plumage, which is some- 

 times prolonged until late in the fall, but not so late as in the young 

 bird. 



The molts and plumages of the female are parallel with those of 

 the male, but old and young birds are not so easily recognized. I 

 believe that specimens showing the orange zone in the bill and the 

 well-marked black band across the white space in the wing are old 

 birds. The white neck of the adult female is acquired during the 

 first spring. 



Food. — While with us on the coast the goldeneye feeds largely on 

 small mussels and other mollusks, which it obtains b}'^ diving in deep 

 water or by dabbling in the shallows near the shore, it feeds to some 

 extent also on the seeds of eel grass {Zostera marina). The stomach 

 of a bird taken by Dr. John C. Phillips (1911) in a lake in Massa- 



