Brewster's Descriptions of First Plumages. 15 



Green-backed form, S. alleni, extends north of California. Some 

 pretty strong evidence to the contrary, of a negative character, 

 may be advanced. The Smithsonian collection contains quite a 

 number of specimens of the Rufous bird from Oregon, Wash- 

 ington Territory, Vancouver Island, and Sitka, a region faunally 

 quite the same as Nootka Sound, which is on the southwest- 

 ern shore of Vancouver Island. The presumptive evidence is 

 quite strong that if the Green-backed form were really present it 

 would have appeared in the numerous collections from this region 

 received by the Smithsonian. From the above proof it seems clear 

 that Gmelin's bird was the Rufous-backed form, which of course re- 

 tains his name rvfus, thus leaving to the Green-backed form the 

 name Selasphorns alleni given by me in the July number of this 

 Bulletin (Vol. II, No. 2). 



DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FIRST PLUMAGE IN VARIOUS SPE- 

 CIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



By William Brewster. 



The first plumage assumed by nearly all young Altrices (birds 

 which are reared in the nest) at or about the time of leaving the 

 nest, though representing a universal, and, in the majority of cases, 

 well-defined stage, has been almost entirely ignored by Ornithologi- 

 cal writers, or, if referred to at all, in such comprehensive and in- 

 definite terms as to afford information of little distinctive value. 

 Thus under the general term "young," we find described sometimes 

 the real nestling, but more frequently the young in autumnal dress. 



My attention was called to this fact some years since by the ex- 

 treme difhculty, and too often impossibility, of identifying by "the 

 books" nestlings of even the commoner species. I have since given 

 special care to the acquisition of series of specimens representing all 

 the stages through which birds pass in arriving at maturity, and it 

 is proposed in the course of the present paper to treat, as fully as 

 may seem necessary, some hitherto undescribed plumages of North 

 American birds, and also in certain instances to clear up the confu- 



