174 Trumbull on the Scoters. [~Aprii 



later writers describe it as similarly youthful in appearance ; a 

 "whitish patch on the side of the head behind the eye" ; 

 plumage of the body '-pale grayish below," etc. One work 

 describes it correctly enough as having practically u no white 

 about the head," but includes a contradictory picture which 

 shows very positively both the loral and auricular patches. 



Though — with a single exception to which I allude under 

 phase F — each figure in the accompanying plate is fairly repre- 

 sentative of all the individuals of the phase to which it is 

 ascribed, each is taken from a single bird: no one of them is in 

 any degree a composite picture. They are life size, and I have 

 done my utmost to render them accurate, using only fresh speci- 

 imens as models. 



As I wished to give shaded drawings of the bills of the adult 

 female and immature male D, I have included a plain outline 

 also of each for easier comparison with the other unshaded draw- 

 ings. Some change is discernable in the shape of the bill, even 

 within two or three days after the bird is shot, and before 

 many months have elapsed its original form (like its original 

 color) can only be guessed at. It is in the shape and size of the 

 nostrils, perhaps, that the alteration is most marked. They are 

 much less open, much smaller, terminate acutely at the front, are 

 now far from circular in the adult and nearly adult male, and no 

 longer elliptical in the female and young. 



When the bill of a perfectly fresh specimen is measured, its 

 width at widest part is greater than the distance from the nostril 

 to the tip, while in an old skin the width is frequently less than 

 the distance from nostril to tip, and the lateral outlines of the 

 maxilla — which in life are strongly convex — have become (by 

 uneven shrinkage) much more nearly parallel. 



I have been greatly impressed, while studying these birds in 

 and out of doors, by the differences between the color of the 

 plumages when fresh and the appearance of the same plumages 

 on dried skins six months or more later. I can now only 

 speak positively about the skins of deglandi and perspicillata, 

 but I presume that similar changes occur in attiericana and 

 numerous other species. I am not referring to the black of the 

 male which in time becomes somewhat less intense, less glossy, 

 but to the brown plumages of the female and young. These 



