Merriam on Birds of Lewis County, New York. 123 



77. Molothrus ater. 



First plumage : female. Above olivaceous-brown, the primaries, secon- 

 daries, greater and middle coverts, and every feather upon the nape and 

 interscapular region, edged with light sugar-brown. Superciliary line 

 and entire under parts delicate brownish-yellow. The throat and lower 

 area of abdomen immaculate ; everywhere else thickly streaked with 

 purplish-drab. From a specimen in my cabinet taken at Cambridge, 

 Mass., August 4, 1875. A male in first plumage differs in being much 

 darker and more thickly streaked beneath. Specimens in process of 

 change into the autumnal plumage are curiously patched and marked 

 with the light brown of the first plumage and the darker feathers of the 

 fall dress. All the remiges and rectrices are moulted with the rest of the 

 first plumage during the first moult. 



REMARKS ON SOME OF THE BIRDS OF LEWIS COUNTY, 

 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 



BY C. HART MERRIAM. 



(Continued from p. 56.) 



Melanerpes erythrocephalus. Red-headed Woodpecker. — This 

 handsome bird, the most beautiful, to my eye, of all our Woodpeckers, 

 may be regarded as a common resident in Lewis County ; for since my 

 earliest recollection — and the bird has always been a favorite with me — 

 it has been plentiful throughout the entire year, excepting only during 

 those winters which followed unusually small yields of beechnuts. 



Like the Y"ellow-bellied and Golden-winged Woodpeckers, and to a cer- 

 tain extent the Red-bellied also, it is generally considered a truly migra- 

 tory species wherever it occurs at all (in the Eastern Province) north of 

 the Southern States. In 1862 Dr. Coues gave it as a " summer resident" in 

 the District of Columbia, stating that it " arrives in spring usually the 

 last week in April ; leaves about the middle of September." * Turn bull 

 says (1869) that in East Pennsylvania and New Jersey it is " plentiful, 

 arriving in the latter part of April, and departing in September or begin- 

 ning of October." t Again, in 1868, Coues gives it as a "rare summer 

 visitant "J to New England, and De Kay tells us (1843) that it " arrives in 



* List of Birds ascertained to inhabit the District of Columbia. By Elliott 

 Coues and D. Webster Prentiss. From Smithsonian Report for 1861, 1862, 

 p. 403. 



+ Birds of East Pennsylvania and New Jersey. By William P. Tumbull, 

 LL. D. Glasgow (Cuts), p. 15, 1869. 



X Proceed. Essex Inst., Vol. V, p. 263, 1868. 



