2C)0 Palmer, Plumages of the Hooded Warbler. Foct^ 



collected during the latter part of July and in August in the same 

 localities, shows how the change has been effected ; the yellow 

 and green parts have become much richer in color, while the 

 black feathers are more abundant, with stronger and more regu- 

 larly marked yellow and green tips. It is almost impossible to 

 notice the change of color on comparing individual feathers, but 

 taken collectively there is a decided change from the paler 

 almost whitish yellow of the younger birds to an intensity of 

 color nearly approaching orange in the last collected specimens. 

 That the change is slow is shown by the presence of pin feathers 

 even in the last specimens collected on the 26th of August, so 

 that the later dated specimens all show a greater abundance of 

 richer, deeper colored feathers all over the body as contrasted 

 with the June and early July young birds. The moulting of 

 the first flight feathers and the growth of new ones as indicated 

 by the "spike-tails," mentioned by Messrs. Rathbun and 

 Wright, as quoted above, has not taken place in any of my 

 specimens. 1 If they really moult then the change must take 

 place after the moult on the body is fully completed. No appre- 

 ciable difference is found on comparing a number of these late 

 young males, but in the females of corresponding ages there 

 would seem to be some slight difference in the size and exact 

 location of the black spots on the head. On the last female 

 described above, the spots are decided, while on others they are 

 much less so, hardly two being alike. On one they consist of a 

 mere dusky darkening near the tips of a few feathers, while on 

 two specimens I have been unable to find any, though, as the 

 region of the spots is the last to complete the new plumage and 

 pin feathers are still visible, it is possible that they have not yet 

 appeared. 



It would thus seem, in the light of my experience and speci- 

 mens, that the changes in this species from the nestling to the 

 adult plumage takes place in these counties of Tidewater 

 Virginia, approximately between the 20th of June and the 6th of 

 July, and that a further and more gradual change, requiring 

 about six weeks, brings them to the same general plumage as 



1 1 am now strongly inclined to the opinion that their birds were not young at all, 

 but adults acquiring the fall plumage. 



