158 GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
Adult Female in Summer.—The female in her summer dress 
is a very different bird, and has the top of the head broadly 
barred with black and deep yellow or buff; back and sides of 
neck and head, yellowish white, barred or spotted with black; 
entire upper parts, including upper tail-coverts, vermiculated 
with black and deep butt (some feathers almost black), edged 
and tipped with buff or white, this being particularly the case 
upon the upper part of back near the neck; wings, like the back, 
but primaries and secondaries white, the shafts of former, brown; 
tail, dark brown, the feathers with white bases and white edges 
to the tips; four median feathers, black, irregularly barred with 
white, and tipped with white ; throat, yellowish white, becoming 
pale buft on the breast, the latter broadly barred in waving lines, 
with black ; flanks, also buff, with broad brownish black bars ; 
lower breast, abdomen, and under tail-coverts, buffy white, with oc- 
casional black bars visible; thighs, white; feathers of legs and feet, | 
yellowish white; bill and claws, pale horn color, ‘Total length, 
about 12} inches; wing, 6}; tail, 48; bill at gape, }; tarsus, 1}. 
Adult Female tn Autumn resembles the summer plumage of 
the male, but has a generally more grayish appearance, and with 
the back more conspicuously and profusely blotched with black; 
no indication of black upon the lores, but upon the flanks are oc- 
casional feathers broadly barred with black and white, the latter 
sometimes tinged with yellow, as is characteristic of the summer 
dress of the adult female; the throat and neck are more conspicu- 
ously barred with black and white than in the male, and have 
more the appearance of a white ground barred with black; the 
abdomen and under tail-coverts are pure white, and the tail 
feathers are tipped with white. 
Winter Plumage, pure white, with a black loral streak in the 
male. 
