122 DWIGHT 



seriously and as long as they are unaware that the plumage of 

 a specimen may be the resultant of no less than three moults, 

 that old and young may moult quite differently and that males 

 and females may not moult alike, of what value are their 

 theories ? 



Dr. Chadbourne in his paper previously cited asserts that 

 the skin of a Bobolink taken March i, in Brazil, proves color 

 change and moult going on simultaneously. An understanding 

 of the A B C of moult shows that the first assumption is without 

 support and that the bird is a typical adult male undergoing 

 a perfectly normal and complete prenuptial moult as already 

 explained by Mr. Chapman ('97). The feathers of the worn 

 adult winter dress are found at exactly the points where they 

 are regularly found in all Passerine species before a moult is 

 completed and the whiteness of the abdomen is not due to 

 albinism as the writer suggests, but to the normal fading of 

 feathers that were almost white when assumed in the autumn. 

 I have examined the bird and agree with Mr. Chapman that 

 no new white feathers are discoverable (the one figured by 

 (Chadbourne, yii'//', '97, plate la, fig. 2) certainly does not look 

 like a new one), all of them being much worn. Therefore the 

 "proof" that they will turn black rests on a single feather 

 by what means determined as of new growth we are not in- 

 formed. In like manner his statement that the black feathers 

 regularly sprinkled on the throats of adults in autumn will 

 shortly turn buff is not in accordance with facts for these feath- 

 ers become the old worn ones found on the March bird, {i.e., 

 feather, plate la, fig. 4 would wear to fig. 3). In fig. 5 is shown 

 an autumn feather that would be found in spring with the foci 

 unchanged. In fig. i we see another old black feather that was 

 just the same color when it grew at the postnuptial moult. Not 

 one of these feathers therefore has been correctly interpreted and 

 what is true of this plate is true of others that are considered 

 convincing proofs of alleged color changes in other species. 



Now, to maintain in the face of these facts about which there 

 can be no question, that moult and a color change may coexist 

 in such a warping of facts to fit a theory, that even the em- 



