72 BrewEB's Notes on Junco Caniceps. 



female bird, like the male, is several years — at least three — in attaining 

 its lull plumage ; and that the two sexes, when fully adult, can only be 



distinguished by the fad that, in the female, the throat, though Btrongly 

 tinged with black, is never pure black as in tin- male." Long ago 1 dis- 

 covered these facts, as the bird is an abundantly breeding summer resi- 

 dent here, where I have taken several of their nests in a single walk. 

 With a large series of specimens before me, I can fully indorse Mr. 

 Merriam's views. The females of the second summer are entirely with- 

 out any hlack upon the head, and 1 have frequently. found them sitting 

 upon their eggs in this condition. Males of the same age show very evi- 

 dent traces of hlack. Only in extreme examples does the black on the 

 hood and throat of the female approach the purity of those parts in the 

 male. 



9. Siurus motacilla, (Vieillot) Coues. Large -billed Watkr- 

 Thrtjsh. — I wish to call attention to the fact that the chin and throat of 

 this sjiecies are not "entirely immaculate,"* as described in the books. ' to 

 •the contrary, 1 have never seen a specimen, in the large number of birds 

 belonging to this species which I have handled, that lacked minute mark- 

 ings of brown on the chin ami throat, though these are much less strong 

 than in X. ncevius. There is also a whitish stripe extending from the base 

 of tin; maxilla to the back of the eye, involving the under lid, and sepa- 

 rated, anteriorly, from the superciliary line, extending from the bill, 

 above the eye, to the nape, by a narrow dark band. This stripe is often 

 quite conspicuous. 



NOTES ON JUNCO CANICEPS AND THE CLOSELY ALLIED 



FORMS. 



JSY T. M. BREWER. 



Among a collection of nests and eggs received the past season 

 from Colorado, coining from the vicinity of Summit County, the 

 highest inhabited portion of that State, arc three nests of the Junco 



caniceps. They are assigned to the common resident Juno of that 

 region by Mr. Edwin Carter, who identified them; the parents, in 

 each instance, having been shot on the nest, and ascertained to be 

 the bird there known as the Cinereous Snow-bird. Unfortunately 

 the individual parents were not preserved with their nests, so that 

 it is now impossible to verify these identifications. It therefore re- 

 mains an interesting question whether the eggB of the Junco caniceps 

 exhibit such surprising variations as are shown in these sets, or 



• Baird, Brewer, an. I Ridgway, Hist, of N. Am. Birds, Vol. I, p. -j^7, ls74. 



