NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 69 



in the nest. The quantity of fish the j'oung birds consume is astonishing, and 

 all day long the parents are constantly employed supplying them with food. 

 For some time after leaving the nest the birds are of a light drab color, and 

 they only assume the snow-white plumage of the adult after several molts. 



C. Barrington Brown (1876) observes: 



I was greatly amused with the appearance of two young but fully-fledged 

 jabirus, which stood on their large flat nest, composed of sticks entwined together, 

 on the branch of a large isolated tree, growing on the river's bank. They 

 looked like two shipwrecked mariners on a rock in mid-ocean, waiting to be de- 

 livered from their lonely watch by a passing ship. They stood there as if scan- 

 ning the horizon, apparently deep in thought, shifting their position now and 

 then from one leg to the other, or taking a solemn and stately stroll round the 

 confines of their nest. Thus we left them, to await the time when their powers 

 of flight would be sufficiently developed, to enable them to go forth into the 

 world and forage for themselves. They were fully feathered with a gray plum- 

 age, which on moulting would change to pure white. 



Plumages. — In the Museum of Comparative Zoology, in Cambridge 

 are two downy young jabirus, as well as birds in juvenal and adult 

 plumages. In the downy young the lores and the spaces around the 

 eyes are naked; and there is a naked space encircling the central 

 part of the neck. Below this naked space the lower neck and the 

 entire body is completely covered with short, thick, white down, 

 locally tinged with yellowish; the top and back of the head are 

 thickly covered and the sides of the head and upper neck are scantily 

 covered with grayish white or yellowish white down. 



I have not seen a bird in the full juvenal plumage, which is evi- 

 dently wholly grayish brown, or "wood brown." Hagmann (1907) 

 says of two young birds, taken from a nest in October 1901 (trans- 

 lated by Mr. Penard) : 



The birds were almost full fledged and were nearly full grown and defended 

 themselves with their powerful bills. The otherwise naked head and neck were 

 sparsely covered with a fine down; all the feathers were brownish, dirty white, 

 without the slightest trace of the pure white adult plumage. During October, 

 1901, I obtained si.K more young birds which I placed in the same pen with the 

 young Euxenura. Toward the end of October a few feathers appeared here and 

 there; atour arrival in Para, at the end of November, 1901, the juvenal plumage 

 was already half replaced, but toward the end of January, 1902, traces of it could 

 still be seen. 



This would seem to indicate that the adult plumage is acquired 

 during the first year; but a note on the label of a specimen in the 

 museum at Cambridge states that the bird changes to white at 2 

 years of age. This specimen was collected in Colombia on July 7 

 and is still in transition plumage ; the crown, occiput, and cervix are 

 scantily covered with dark brown, hairlike feathers, longest on the 

 occiput, and tipped with yellowish; the mantle (back and wing 

 coverts) is a mixture of pure white and "wood brown" feathers 

 with darker tips ("buffy brown"); the wings and tail are white, 



