1C.A Trumbull, <9?i!r Scoters. [April 



drake's, and I am unfamiliar with other intermediate aspects be- 

 tween chickenhood and maturity. It is therefore among the 

 possibilities that during some of these intermediate variations cer- 

 tain tints very different from those I have observed may be devel- 

 oped and retained for a time. Yet, after examining a large 

 number of specimens in both spring and fall, I cannot believe 

 that any of the statements which I quote from others as erroneous 

 concerning this species (and deglandi and perspicillata) will 

 ever be proved to be other than pi^actically erroneous by any 

 amount of additional material. 



Adult male.* — Bill, in front of nostrils and narrowly along the sides, 

 pure black; the remainder, which includes the bulging part or hump, 

 light lemon or canary yellow, richly dyed at the sides with scarlet ver- 

 milion, deeply at and near the nostrils, and lightly (the reddish glow be- 

 coming lighter and more yellowish) toward the base; this bright colora- 

 tion meeting the black of both bill and plumage abruptly. Though the 

 red color at the sides of the bill is never continued farther forward than 

 the nostrils, the yellow — between the nostrils — is sometimes extended 

 beyond them for an eighth of an inch, and in such specimens the black 

 along the sides or edge of the bill is nai-rower. All the drakes that I have 

 examined whose bills are thus more broadly brilliant are to some extent 

 larger than the others, and represent, I imagine, the very highest degree 

 of maturity. Again, in some of those specimens which I regard as less 

 thoroughly developed, the yellow does not quite fill the space between the 

 nostrils, but leaves at each side — at the edge of each nostril — a narrow 

 line of black. Eyes deep brown. Feet dark brown shaded with black; 

 webs black. It may be stated here once for all that the eyes of the males, 

 old and young, as well as those of the females, are deep brown — the spe- 

 cies differing in this respect from degla7idt 2^nd perspicillata. 



Adult female in spring.-^ — Plumage practically brown all over, but this 

 color "blackening here and there, particularly upon the upper parts, and 

 paling to buff and sometimes, very narrowly, to a still lighter tint at the 

 edges or ends of the feathers; the lower surface of the body a trifle lighter 

 than the upper, and a trifle more grayish ; the sides of the head below the 

 eye, and the throat, continuously gray, or dull white faintly and minutely 

 flecked with dusky brown ; this gray part (referred to hereafter simply as 

 the light part of the head) meeting rather abruptly the dark brown which 

 extends over the upper part of the head and along the nape. Bill black 

 or blackish, irregularly marked -with yellow, this color often beginning 

 on the culmen between, or a trifle in front of, the nostrils, and continuing 

 patchily toward the base in two diverging streaks; in other specimens the 

 yellow is almost or wholly confined to the sides of the bill, and runs back- 



*Described from specimens killed April i8 and 19. 

 fDescrihed from specimens killed April 12. 



