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et PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. oe0 
directly upon the somewhat vexed question of the different plumages 
of this species. 
The two females are both old birds, as they show no trace of light ter- 
minal margins to any of the upper wing-coverts, but, although shot on 
the same day (May 20, 1885), one (No. 1381) is considerably more ashy 
than the other (No. 1402). I have observed a similar difference in other 
specimens; the grayer birds are, perhaps, older than the more fulvous 
specimens. These old females are without any blue in the plumage, 
but an adult female in the U.S. National Museum collection (No. 
109339, May 5, 1885), which is fully as ashy as Henson’s No. 1581, has 
the feathers on the crown and forehead narrowly tipped with sky-blue, 
with no trace, however, of this color on rump, wings, and tail. Hen- 
son’s No. 1381, moreover, shows a trace of albinism, one of the primary 
coverts in the right wing being nearly pure white. 
The old male (Henson, No. 102) is a magnificent bird in the fullest 
height of plumage; the blue edgings to the wing-feathers are rich and 
perfect; the under wing-coverts are blue tipped with white; ‘the sides 
of the breast blue, and the flanks white, heavily spotted with dusky 
spots washed with blue. 
The young male (Henson, No. 1243) shot October 7, 1884, is perhaps 
the most interesting specimen of the lot. On head, interscapulars, and 
under parts it is very much like those of the adult female, though 
slightly more tawny; lower back, rump, wings, and tail, on the other 
hand, are much more like those of the adult male, being colored with 
different tints of blue, but the tips of the greater upper wing coverts 
are inargined with pale ochraceous buff. However, a few feathers of 
the nestling plumage, with pale buffy spots at the tips remain on occi- 
put and upper tail-coverts to prove that the young male molts directly 
from the spotted first plumage into the one with the blue lower back 
andrump. The greater upper wing coverts, as well as a few of the 
lesser ones, are margined at tip with pale ochraceous buff. 
With the aid of specimens in the U.S. National Museum we are then 
able to trace the different change of plumages as follows: 
First plumage at leaving the nest.—Feathers on head, interseapilium, 
and breast, with a subapical ochraceous-buffy spot followed by a termi- 
nal dusky margin. This plumage is already described by Mx. Jouy (loe. 
cit.), from whose remarks we note that the sexes are strongly marked 
already in this plumage, the males having the wings blue, the females 
brown. He does not say anything of the color of the tail in the nest- 
ling male, and we have no specimen at hand, but it is safe to assume 
that it is blue with white bases, as in the next plumage, since no molt 
of the rectrices takes place when the nestling plumage is changed. (U, 
S. Nat. Mus., No. 88616.) 
Young males in the first autumn (cf. what is said above) have the upper 
parts of head, neek, and interscapulars nearly a pure raw umber, gradu- 
ally changing into a tawny olive on the under parts, the middle portions 
