Brewster's Descriptions of First Plumage?. 175 



DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FIEST PLUMAGE IN VARIOUS SPE- 

 CIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 

 IV.* 



78. Agelaeus phoeniceus. 



First plumage: female. Above dark seal-brown : every feather of the 

 crown, nape, and interscapular region, with the greater and middle wing- 

 coverts, primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries, edged and tipped with 

 brownish-fulvous. Beneath light yellowish-brown, thickly and broadly 

 streaked everywhere with dull black. Sides of throat and head, including 

 a considerable space around the eye, bare skin (of a brownish orange-color 

 in the dried specimen), with a few scattering pin-feathers. From a speci- 

 men in my collection obtained at Cambridge, Mass., June 24, 1872. Males 

 in first plumage before me differ but little from the individual above de- 

 scribed. All have the bare spaces on the sides of the throat, although 

 these are probably feathered before the first moult is begun. A male 

 in transitional dress (collected at Ipswich, Mass., July 15, 1874), with the 

 head fully feathered, has the throat dull brownish-yellow, with a strong 

 tinge of the same color on the breast. The wing and tail feathers are re- 

 newed during the first moult. 



Autumnal plumage : young male. Crown dark brown, with a faint 

 rusty edging upon each feather ; nape brownish-yellow, with a rusty tinge, 

 finely spotted with dark brown ; interscapular region, and a broad outer 

 edging upon the secondaries and tertiaries, deep dull reddish-brown, each 

 feather having a broad V-shaped mark of dull black. Rump glossy black, 

 every feather edged with fulvous ashy ; shoulder dull red with black spot- 

 ting ; middle coverts fulvous ; greater coverts tipped with the same color. 

 Superciliary stripe brownish-yellow. A space anterior to and beneath the 

 eye dusky black. Entire under part.s black, each feather upon the ab- 

 domen edged broadly with pale ashy, elsewhere with yellowish-brown. 

 The light edging of the feathers gives the under parts a conspicuously 

 scutellate appearance. From a specimen in my collection taken at Cam- 

 bridge, Mass., October 6, 1876. This plumage (although not to my knowl- 

 edge previously described by writers) is the characteristic one of the young 

 in autumn. I am unable to state if the adult male retains his uniform 

 black coloring at all seasons. A remarkable variation from the typical 

 plumage is afforded by a fine adult male in my cabinet, which has a broad 



* For Parts I, II, and III, see this volume, pp. 15-23, 56-64, 115-123. 



