244 Zoologica : N. Y. Zoological Society. [1 ; 12 



In the southern White Ibis rookeries, scores of young birds at 

 this stage are to be seen scampering about in flocks an the 

 ground, long before they can fly. 



About the sixth week the young bird begins to use its wings 

 and in a few days can accompany its parents in search of food 

 during the day, returning with them to roost on or near the nest 

 at night. Even at this time there is little change in the nestling 

 plumage of the neck, but when the flight feathers have reached 

 their full development, most of the neck down has been shed. 

 The last trace of this nestling down is found on the crown, where 

 it remains as a conspicuous spot of dense velvety black, many 

 days after the bird is in full juvenile dress. This mark may be 

 distinguished a long distance off. 



In this juvenile plumage the head and neck are streaked. 

 The feathers are gray or ashy white with darker brown centers. 

 This dark marking is most pronounced on the head and upper 

 neck, narrowing and paling on the throat and lower neck, and 

 dying out in the form of shaft streaks on the breast. The ven- 

 tral plumage from the breast backward, the lower back, sides, 

 rump, tail-coverts, the basal half of the tail and the under sur- 

 face of the wings are pure white. The entire wing, mantle, 

 scapulars and terminal half of the tail are olive brown, most of 

 the feathers with an oily green gloss, changing to copper. The 

 concealed portion of nearly all these feathers is more or less 

 white. 



We thus see that except for the smoky gray down of the 

 upper part of the body being replaced with white, the general 

 arrangement of color in the nestling and in the juvenile plumage 

 is similar. 



Except for a steady increase in size and the gradual loss 

 of the velvety down cap, no further change takes place during 

 the first summer and autumn, but late in the winter, usually 

 about February, a moult begins, starting on the mantle and 

 scapulars, and spreading outward over the wings and posteriorly 

 to the tail. This moult is not a short, well defined one but pro- 

 ceeds slowly throughout the year both in wild and in captive 

 birds. In the second summer, the bird is usually quite white, 

 retaining only the old primary and tail-feathers and those of 



