72 Brewer's Notes on Junco Caniceps. 



female bird, like the male, is several years — at least three — in attaining 

 its full plumage ; and that the two sexes, when fully adult, can only he 

 distinguished by the fact that, in the female, the throat, though strongly 

 tinged with black, is never 'pure black as in the male." Long ago I dis- 

 covered these facts, as the bird is an abundantly breeding summer resi- 

 dent here, where I have taken several of their nests in a single walk. 

 With a large series of specimens before me, I can fully indorse Mr. 

 Merriam's views. The females of the second summer are entirely with- 

 out any black iipon the head, and I have frequently found them sitting 

 upon their eggs in this condition. Males of the same age show very evi- 

 dent traces of black. Only in extreme examples does the black on the 

 hood and throat of the female approach the purity of those parts in the 

 male. 



9, Siurus motacilla, (Vieillot) Coues. Large -billed Water- 

 Thrush. — I wish to call attention to the fact that the chin and throat of 

 this species are not " entirely immaculate," * as described in the books. On 

 the contrary, I have never seen a specimen, in the large number of birds 

 belonging to this species which I have handled, that lacked minute mark- 

 ings of brown on the chin and throat, though these are much less strcmg 

 than in S. ncevius. There is also a whitish stripe extending from the base 

 of the maxilla to the back of the eye, involving the under lid, and sepa- 

 rated, anteriorly, from the superciliary line, extending from the bill, 

 above the eye, to the nape, by a narrow dark band. This stripe is often 

 quite conspicuous. 



NOTES ON JUNCO CANICEPS AND THE CLOSELY ALLIED 



rOEMS. 



BY T. M. BREWER. 



Among a collection of nests and eggs received the past season 

 from Colorado, coming from the vicinity of Summit County, the 

 highest inhabited portion of that State, are three nests of the Junco 

 canicejis. They are assigned to the common resident Jxmco of that 

 region by Mr. Edwin Carter, who identified them ; the parents, in 

 each instance, having been shot on the nest, and ascertained to be 

 the bird there known as the Cinereous Snow-bird. Unfortunately 

 tlie individual parents were not preserved with their nests, so that 

 it is now impossible to verify these identifications. It therefore re- 

 mains an interesting question whether the eggs of the J%uico caniceps 

 exhibit such surprising variations as are shown in these sets, or 



* Jjaird, Brewer, and Eidgway, Hist, of N. Am. Birds, Vol. I, p. 287, 1874. 



