PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 73 
domen absolutely naked, has the feathers more uniformly developed, as 
most of the dark ones are fully grown out, only a few on the interscap- 
ulum being still partly in the sheaths. Besides, two or three new, 
yellowish-colored feathers protrude from the naked parts. 
During my boat expedition around Bering Island in the latter part of 
August, I procured several males, two of which, being the most interest- 
ing ones, were prepared. Unfortunately, the bad weather alinost spoiled 
them afterwards. (Nos. 1487 and 1489.) The following remarks are an 
extract from my journal of August 23: The summer plumage is now 
wholly developed in all specimens, as the dark or rather black feathers 
of breast and abdomen are out too. Some few dark ones, however, are 
still in their sheaths, this being especially the case in the aforesaid parts 
of No. 1457. But the white feathers are in progress on the same parts 
too, being, especially in No. 1489, developed to such a degree that the 
breast and abdomen are white already in the middle from the half 
“blown ” new white feathers. In No. 1487 new black and white feathers 
occur on the same parts and in the same state of development. Con- 
sequently it follows that the moulting of the winter plumage does not 
extend beyond the breast and abdomen; these parts for a short time 
assuming black feathers, while at the same time the new white feathers 
of the coming winter plumage make their eruption on the same parts, and 
that the change of the summer plumage first begins where it had last 
been assumed. The same remarks are applicable to the wing coverts, 
with the modification that the greater part of these is white through 
the whole year, the new and the old white feathers staying side by side 
in my specimens. In the latter the inner wing feathers are new, while 
the three outermost primaries still remain from the foregoing year. The 
Shafts of the new primaries are dark gray, this color being faded and 
almost invisible on the old ones. 
The specimens show a very marked difference in color of the upper 
surface. No. 1489 has the upper parts darker, less rusty, and the feath- 
ers less distinctly banded, thus assuming a more irregular and more 
minutely watered aspect. It must be remarked, however, that in No. 
1487 the few feathers still undeveloped, are of a darker color and of a 
pattern more like those of No. 1489 than the more rusty colored feathers 
of the remaining upper plumage. But these feathers are so few in 
number that I feel satisfied that this specimen at least would not have 
assumed any new plumage before the final change into the white winter 
plumage. The dark specimen has also some new and “unblown” feath- 
ers among the old ones on exactly the same parts as No. 1487. From 
this I feel very much inclined to believe that the difference is caused 
by age, and I doubt at present very much the idea of Professor Lillje- 
borg that the darker plumage signifies a special autumnal plumage. It 
seems to me that we may reasonably conclude that Lagopus albus in this 
region is subject to an uninterrupted change from the moment when the 
first dark feathers make their appearance in spring until the last one 
