PASSERINE BIRDS OF NEW YORK 165 



is possible such feathers developed of a greenish color at this 

 season. There is not the slightest reason for believing in an ab- 

 normal color change without moult in this species even if I am 

 wrong in concluding the greenish plumage is worn but one sum- 

 mer. It may possibly be that no chestnut or black is assumed 

 by any birds until the first postnuptial moult and the second 

 winter plumage is still partly greenish with the mottled tails that 

 give rise to the unwarrantable idea of color redistributing itself 

 in old feathers, but until greenish autumnal adults (as determined 

 by cranial characters) having black throats, mottled tails, and 

 chestnut scattered on the abdomen are forthcoming, there is no 

 good reason for supposing that more than a twelve-month, as in 

 other species, is required to attain adult dress. 



Female. — The natal down and ju venal plumage are identical 

 with those of the male. Later the female undergoes the same 

 moults as the male, the one prenuptial which occurs being very 

 limited or even suppressed. Females always remain in a green- 

 ish dress like the male first winter plumage or at most assume, 

 when fully adult, a few black feathers on the throat. 



Icterus galbula (Linn.). Baltimore Oriole 



1. Natal Down. No specimen seen. 



2. Juvenal Plumage acquired by a complete postnatal moult. 



Above, olive-brown, slightly orange tinged, brightest on head and upper tail coverts. 

 Wings clove-brown, the primaries narrowly, the tertiaries broadly edged with 

 dyll white, two wing bands at tips of greater and median coverts pale buff. A 

 tertiary is figured on plate II, fig. 8. Tail chiefly gallstone-yellow, centrally 

 much darker and brownish. Below, including " edge of wing" ochre-yellow, 

 sometimes orange with ochraceous tinge, palest on chin and middle of abdomen, 

 brightest on breast and crissum. Bill pinkish buff, becoming slate-gray with 

 age. Feet olive-gray, black when older. 



3. First Winter Plum.vge acquired by a partial postjuvenal 

 moult beginning early in July w^iich involves the body plumage 

 and the wing coverts but not the rest of the wings nor the tail. 



Similar to previous plumage but dull orange brown above and much brighter orange 

 below, although lacking the black areas of the adult. The greater and median 

 wing coverts become dull black, white tipped, the latter and the lesser coverts 



