Notes on the Plumage of North American Sparrows 



FOURTH PAPER 



By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



(See frontispiece) 



Pine Siskin (Figs. 1,2). The Pine Siskin's streaked underparts and yellow 

 wing-marks (the latter showing more plainly in flight) are its distinguishing 

 characters. The sexes are alike in color. In worn breeding-plumage the streaks 

 below become more sharply defined, and there is no yellow or buff suffusion. 



The Juvenal plumage is strongly suffused with yellow, particularly on the 

 underparts, but this is lost at the postjuvenal molt, when the young bird 

 acquires a plumage essentially like that of the winter adult. 



There is no spring or prenuptial molt, the black-and-white appearance of 

 the breeding-plumage being due to wear and fading. 



Goldfinch (Figs. 3-6). No difficulty will be experienced in identifying 

 the Goldfinch, both its colors and notes being distinctive; but its marked 

 changes of plumage may lead one to confuse the sexes. At the postnuptial 

 molt, the gold-and-black adult male (Fig. 3) loses his bright yellow body 

 feathers, which are replaced by others resembling those of the winter female; 

 but the new feathers of the tail and wings, like those of the nuptial plumage, 

 are black with white markings, and the 'shoulder-patch' is yellow (Fig. 5). 

 This plumage is worn until the following April, when the body feathers alone 

 are molted and the bright yellow plumage regained. 



The young male (Fig. 4) at the postjuvenal (fall) molt changes the 

 brown-washed body feathers for others resembling those of the adult male 

 in winter, but it retains the wings and tail of the juvenal dress. These are 

 much browner than those of the adult, the white markings are washed with 

 brownish, and the lesser wing-coverts, instead of forming the bright yellow 

 shoulder-patch of the adult, are but faintly or not at all washed with yellow 

 and are bordered by whitish, giving two wing-bars instead of one as in the adult. 



At the spring molt, the young bird acquires a yellow body plumage and 

 black cap, Uke that of the adult, but the wings and tail are not molted until 

 after the breeding-season (postnuptial). In its first breeding-season, therefore, 

 the young male may be distinguished from the fully adult male by the colors 

 of its wings and tail, which are brownish instead of black, and by the absence 

 of the bright yellow shoulder-patch. 



The adult female (Fig. 2) in summer plumage is almost as bright below 

 as the male, but the uniform, brownish olive-green upper parts and the absence 

 of a black cap at once distinguish her. After the postnuptial molt, however, 

 she cannot be certainly known from the young male. 



The Pale Goldfinch (Aslragalinus tristis pallidns) of the Rocky mountain 

 region is somewhat larger, and, in winter plumage, decidedly paler, while 

 the Willow Goldfinch (.1. /. salicamans) of the Pacific coast is slightly 

 smaller and darker than the eastern form. 



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