288 DWIGHT 



lemon-yellow, the secondaries and tertiaries edged with dull olive-green, the 

 coverts with wood-brown paler at their tips. Below, pale primrose-yellow, hair 

 brown on the chin, throat and breast. Bill and feet dusky pinkish buff darken- 

 ing to brownish black when older. 



3. FIRST WINTER PLUMAGE acquired by a partial postjuvenal 

 moult beginning early in July, which involves the body plum- 

 age and the wing coverts, but not the rest of the wings nor the 

 tail. 



Unlike the previous plumage. Above, the pileum, nape and sides of the neck mouse- 

 gray, the back olive-green, often tinged with brownish orange, the upper tail 

 coverts clove-brown. The wing coverts become dull olive-green. Below, dull 

 white, ashy and pinkish buff suffusing the chin and throat, an orange-ochraceous 

 or deep chrome-yellow area on either side of the breast, the color tingeing the 

 breast and sides. Orbital ring, white. 



4. FIRST NUPTIAL PLUMAGE acquired by a partial prenuptial 

 moult, which involves chiefly the head and throat, where a few 

 black feathers in patches are acquired. A few may be found 

 scattered sparingly elsewhere and new white feathers on the 

 chin are the rule. The prenuptial moult is late, probably in 

 March and April, for growing feathers occur on birds taken near 

 New York city in May. Abrasion and fading make birds paler 

 above and whiter below. The distribution of black feathers is 

 not unlike that of the new feathers assumed by Icterus spurius, 

 Piranga rubra and other less conspicuously colored species 

 like Dendroica palmamm, but in this species, which is unique 

 among our Warblers during the first breeding season in wearing 

 an immature dress strikingly different from the adult, the re- 

 newal is reduced to a minimum. 



5. ADULT WINTER PLUMAGE acquired by a complete post- 

 nuptial moult in July. The black and orange-red dress is 

 assumed, the black feathers often having a faint buffy edging. 

 Sometimes the orange basal part of the primaries or of the rec- 

 trices fails to develop and yellow, as in the first winter, takes its 

 place. One specimen in my collection has six secondaries and 

 the adjacent tertiary of one wing, and the rectrices with yellow ; 

 another has one secondary with yellow. Other than these I 

 have seen no evidence of failure to attain fully adult dress at 

 this moult. 



