310 BIRDS FROM YEZO, JAPAN—STEJNEGER. 
are designated as females by the collectors, except the last two, of 
which the Yokohama specimen is undoubtedly a female, while the Na- 
gasaki bird may possibly be a male. As the series covers the time from 
the autumnal molt until the middle of June next year, and as there is 
no perceptible increase of the white color to be observed, it seems fair 
to conclude that the quill pattern of the females of the second year 
remains nearly unchanged until the molt in the third autumn; conse- 
quently that the black does not “gradually disappear,” at least not in 
the females, during the second year. 
We headed the foregoing series with a September female just molt- 
ing and another one having just finished the molt of her second autumn. 
No. 96209 (U. S. Nat. Mus.) is also a September male, collected by 
Blakiston at Yubutz, Yezo, September 15, 1882 (Blak., No. 2957), which 
has just passed the molt, traces of the “sheaths” still adhering to the 
basis of several of the quills, while the first primary and the inner- 
most secondary is not yet fully grown out. That it is not a bird of the 
year is plain from the fact that some of the feathers on the back are 
blackish, while nearly all the lesser wing coverts are black; that it is 
not much more than a year old, [think, will be plain from the pattern 
of the quills, the secondary and primary corresponding to those of the 
female already figured, being figs. 4 and 5, pl. xlv. It will be seen by a 
comparison with figs. 2 and 3 that the difference in male and female in 
the quill pattern during this stage is slight, although the latter is evi- 
dently ‘“‘more backward,” as Mr. Sharpe remarks. Like the female, 
this specimen has the white of the head and the back suffused with 
yellowish. Another male in precisely the same stage of molt was shot 
by Capt. Blakiston on the following day (U. 8. Nat. Mus., No. 107015; 
Yubutz, Yezo, September 14, 1882; Blak., No. 2955), has the wing pat- 
tern essentially similar, the fifth primary having only a little more white 
in the inner web along the shaft, but on the proximal secondary the 
black is reduced to a slight dusky trace in both webs. A third male, 
shot by the same gentleman on the last day of the same month (U.S. 
Nat. Mus., No. 96225; Blak., No. 3031), is absolutely similar, but there 
is hardly a trace of dusky left on the proximal secondary. In all three 
the black on the outer webs of the outer primaries extends consider- 
ably towards the base, but is especially pronounced and extensive in 
the last-mentioned specimen. These three examples being shot nearly 
at the same time show plainly the range of individual variation in re- 
gard to the quill pattern, and demonstrate the necessity of dispensing 
with the theory of a gradual change taking place during the following 
winter, a conclusion furthermore strengthened by an inspection of the 
following specimens: U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 96222 (2, Yezo, Oct. 10, 
1882; Blak., No. 3101), very much like the bird figured (figs. 4 and 5), but 
the outer web of the proximal secondary nearly entirely white, and 
black on outer webs of outer primaries very heavy; No. 96201 (4, Yo- 
kohama, Noy. 20, 1882), nearly identical with No. 96225, but black on 
it 
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