108 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the nest about two days prematurely, returned as soon as they had 

 recovered from their alarm ; and Mrs. Myers (1909) tells of one young 

 bird flying and hopping about in the tree for 12 minutes, then flying 

 back to the nest. 



The young remain in the nest for about 19 days, a period not only 

 longer than that of the majority of the smaller passerine birds, but 

 apparently much more constant, the shortest time reported being 18 

 days. 



Plumages. — On the bodies of the newly hatched young, long white 

 down covers the lower back, fringes, and wings and forms a circlet or 

 halo around the bare crown of the head. Some of the filaments on 

 the wings approximate 1 centimeter in length. The exposed upper 

 surfaces of the body are slaty black, the skin gradually becoming 

 more transparent toward the median lower parts. Pinfeathers begin 

 to appear about one week after hatching, and by the tenth or eleventh 

 day the beginnings of the crest are quite apparent on the forehead. 

 Vestiges of down still cling to the feathers of the head when the 

 young are nearly ready to leave the nest. 



The following data have been abstracted from a treatise on the 

 postjuvenal molt, by Dr. Alden H. Miller (1933) : 



The sexes are identical in the juveual plumage and are extremely similar 

 to the adult female. The body plumage is slightly browner throughout than 

 is that of the adult female, but this appears to be due in part to the looser 

 structure of the vanes of the feathers of the juvenile, which permits exposure 

 of some of the basal parts of the feathers * * *. 



Contrasted with the adult female, the light-colored edgings on rectrices, on 

 middle, greater, and marginal coverts of the forearm, and on the inner second- 

 aries of juveniles are less definitely set off from the gray parts of these same 

 feathers and are duskier or huffier. The major feathers of the wing and tail 

 are often a lighter shade of dark brown than in adult females. 



Dr. Miller shows that there are pronounced individual and geo- 

 graphic variations in the completeness of the postjuvenal or first fall 

 molt. "The admixture of plumage can be adequately studied only 

 in the male Phainopepla. In this sex brown ju venal rectrices, rem- 

 iges, and coverts stand in sharp contrast with corresponding glossy 

 black feathers gained in the postjuvenal molt. * * * Not infre- 

 quently the mixture of plumages and feather types produce gro- 

 tesquely pied male individuals, * * * j^ would appear that the 

 immature male Phainopepla has differentiated sexually at the time 

 of the first fall molt sufficiently to stimulate deposition of black pig- 

 ment in rectrices, remiges, and coverts. If any of these are not 

 molted, there is, of course, no chance for this differentiation to find 

 expression." The group from coastal and central California aver- 

 ages higher in juvenal feathers than the birds from the desert regions, 

 perhaps because of the earlier breeding of the latter. Of the post- 



