312 BIRDS FROM YEZO, JAPAN—STEJNEGER. 
accidentally; of these new feathers the fifth primary has quite as much 
black as fig. 5, while the fourth one in the inner shows even more 
than the average female after the molt in the second autumn, though 
the outer web is pure white, except at the tip, a feature only visible in 
a few of the most extreme specimens. The other bird is an unsexed 
specimen in the middle of the autumnal molt (Henson’s No. 39, Hako- 
date, Aug. 14, 1882) contour feathers as well as remiges and rectrices 
being shed; in the wing, which even in the old plumage belongs to the 
extreme white type, the five proximal primaries are fully grown; the 
third and fourth are still small, while the two outer ones as well as all 
the secondaries belong to the old plumage. So much can be said 
from this specimen that the new feathers have just as much black as 
the old ones, and that in this bird, at least, the new molt weuld not 
have brought on an increased amount of white. To this may be suc- 
cessfully replied, however, that this bird had already at some previous 
molt obtained its maximum of white, and that it consequently does not 
prove that atthe moltin the third autumn the quill pattern of figs. 2-5 
is not exchanged for that of the extreme white type. Nor does the 
last specimen before me, a female which I collected in Kamtchatka, 
May 24, 1883 (U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 92688), prove much either way. 
Although being surely a female it has a fifth primary like fig. 5 (¢) 
and a proximal secondary nearly white, It is consequently whiter in 
the quill pattern than any female in the series, the sex of which is as- 
certained beyond «a doubt. As I have pointed out above, the Kam- 
tehatkan birds seem to have a somewhat darker wing than the birds 
breeding in the south. Is the present specimen, therefore, a bird in the 
fourth year, or is the unusual amount of white simply due to indi- 
vidual variation? 
After having thus examined a series of about seventy examples, we 
are reluctantly forced to admit that still more examples are needed in 
order to get at the bottom of the question. About twenty more white- 
winged M. lugens, collected in the north of Japan between the begin. 
ning of August and the middle of September, in the different stages of 
molt, and accurately sexed by dissection, will be necessary to end the 
dispute. Will our friends in that country help us to complete the se 
ries and end the dispute? But no more young birds with “brown” 
wings need be slaughtered. 
Mr. Henson’s thirteen specimens having been mentioned during the 
above already too lengthy discussion, I consider it unnecessary to 
refer to them more particularly. 
Motacilla grandis SUARPE. (229) 
As with the foregoing, it will be most instructive to begin with the 
synonymy as follows: 
1835.— Motacilla lugubris TEMMINCK, Man. d’Orn., 2d ed., U1, pp. li, 175 (part., nec 
1820). 
