290 Bird - Lore 



The last Towhees were seen in northern Montana on the average, Septem- 

 ber 24, latest, October g, 1905 ; Yuma, Colo., average, October 6, latest, October 

 10, 1908; Beulah, Colo., average, October 14, latest, October 27, 1910. The 

 Towhees that spend the winter at Kerrville, Tex., have left there on the aver- 

 age, May 3, latest. May 8, 1907; and near Manhattan, Kan., average, May 3, 

 latest. May 12, 1884. 



Notes on the Plumage of North American Sparrows 



SEVENTEENTH PAPER 

 By FRANK M, CHAPMAN 



(See frontispiece) 



Towhee {Pipilo e. erythrophthalmus, Figs, i, 2). The nestling Towhee is a 

 sparrow-like looking bird with both upper and underparts streaked with 

 blackish. When the tail-feathers are sufficiently grown, their black or brown 

 color and broad white tips show that the bird is not a true Sparrow, and its 

 characters are quickly revealed when the postjuvenal molt begins. At this 

 molt all the body feathers, all but the primary wing-coverts, the tertials, and, 

 according to Dwight, even the tail, are lost, and the bird passes directly into 

 a plumage which differs from that of fully adult specimens only in having the 

 primary coverts slightly browner. Molting birds are thus at times most cu- 

 riously mottled, males particularly showing black patches of the incoming first 

 winter plumage surrounded by the brown, streaked juvenal plumage. 



The sexes can be distinguished as soon as the tail is long enough to see 

 whether it is composed of the black feathers of the male or brown ones of the 

 female. 



There is no spring molt, and summer birds differ from winter ones only 

 in having more worn plumage. 



Arctic Towhee {Pipilo maculatus arcticus, Figs. 4, 5). Our six western 

 races of Pipilo maculatus differ from the eastern Towhee chiefly in the greater 

 amount of white in the wing-coverts and scapulars and in the darker color of 

 the female. 



The juvenal plumage is darker and more heavily streaked, this being 

 particularly true of the dark race (P. m. oregonus) inhabiting the humid Pacific 

 Coast region from northern California to British Columbia, showing that 

 the characters of the adult are inherited. 



So far as plumage changes are concerned the western bird appears to agree 

 with the eastern one, the adult plumage being acquired at the postjuvenal 

 molt, in which all the feathers except the secondaries and the primaries and 

 their coverts are shed. 



