V °s -X ] Trumbull on the Scoters. 169 



Weight. — Mule : three pounds eight ounces to four pounds nine ounces. 

 Female : two pounds twelve ounces to three pounds seven ounces. 

 (I have measured and weighed nearly a hundred specimens.) 



Adult Male. 



Plumage hlack, inclining a little to brown along the upper part of 

 the sides 1 ; a pure white patch below and behind the eye, beginning at 

 front edge of eye and sweeping backward with an upward curve; the eye 

 also completely edged with this white (see fig. 9); upper portions of 

 plumage showing a faint iridescence which tends to green and plum color, 

 the latter tint confined chiefly to the head and neck. Iris white. Bill 

 (figs, 9 and 12) : upper mandible immediately at base black, this black 

 spreading forward over the knob and continued along the edge, some- 

 times as far as the nail, and sometimes disappearing brokenly before 

 reaching it; sides pinkish purple or wine purple,' 2 changed to orange 

 next to the basal black; the nail reddish orange; from nail to knob white, 

 the middle of the bill, in other words, being broadly white from the nail 

 to the black between the nostrils; lower mandible with a patch of reddish 

 orange at the end, including the nail, and back of this color white, the 

 white meeting irregularly with basal black, which is extended in a some- 

 what varying degree toward the gonys. Feet : outer side wine purple (of 

 a rather light shade and sometimes tending a little toward magenta) ; 

 inner side coral red or orange-vermilion. 3 



Adult Female. 4 



Plumage chiefly dark brown, deepening on upper portions here and 

 there to blackish brown, the brown of the lower surface of the body 

 somewhat lighter and nearly uniform; side of head and the throat 

 streakily and minutely flecked with dull whitish, most noticeably per- 

 haps on the front of the lores, but nowhere forming a 'spot' or 

 'patch'; most of the neck uniformly brown; the feathers of jugulum, 

 front of neck, scapular region, and sides of body, edged at their ends with 



1 Though I have long believed that this brown wholly disappears, I have not yet 

 found a specimen that did not show some of it. It is completely hidden when the 

 wings are closed. 



1 have shot none of these adults in June and July, but in all the other months I 

 have found them similar in appearance to those used in this description. 



2 This color would be better matched if some of the "'heliotrope purple" (see Ridg- 

 way's plate VIII) were mixed with the "wine purple." 



3 I note the omission of a word from former description of these feet (' The Auk,' 

 April, 1892, p. 157). For "side of tarsus and toes" read ''outer side of tarsus and 

 toes." 



4 Described from specimens killed Jan. 19 and April 22. 



