Notes on the Plumage of North American Sparrows 
FOURTH PAPER 
By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 
(See frontispiece) 
Pine Siskin (Figs. 1,2). The Pine Siskin’s streaked underparts and yellow 
wing-marks (the latter showing more plainly in flight) are its distinguishing 
characters. The sexes are alike in color. In worn breeding-plumage the streaks 
below become more sharply defined, and there is no yellow or buff suffusion. 
The juvenal plumage is strongly suffused with yellow, particularly on the 
underparts, but this is lost at the postjuvenal molt, when the young bird 
acquires a plumage essentially like that of the winter adult. 
There is no spring or prenuptial molt, the black-and-white appearance of 
the breeding-plumage being due to wear and fading. 
Goldfinch (Figs. 3-6). No difficulty will be experienced in identifying 
the Goldfinch, both its colors and notes being distinctive; but its marked 
changes of plumage may lead one to confuse the sexes. At the postnuptial 
molt, the gold-and-black adult male (Fig. 3) loses his bright yellow body 
feathers, which are replaced by others resembling those of the winter female; 
but the new feathers of the tail and wings, like those of the nuptial plumage, 
are black with white markings, and the ‘shoulder-patch’ is yellow (Fig. 5). 
This plumage is worn until the following April, when the body feathers alone 
are molted and the bright yellow plumage regained. 
The young male (Fig. 4) at the postjuvenal (fall) molt changes the 
brown-washed body feathers for others resembling those of the adult male 
in winter, but it retains the wings and tail of the juvenal dress. These are 
much browner than those of the adult, the white markings are washed with 
brownish, and the lesser wing-coverts, instead of forming the bright yellow 
shoulder-patch of the adult, are but faintly or not at all washed with yellow 
and are bordered by whitish, giving two wing-bars instead of one as in theadult. 
At the spring molt, the young bird acquires a yellow body plumage and 
black cap, like that of the adult, but the wings and tail are not molted until 
after the breeding-season (postnuptial). In its first breeding-season, therefore, 
the young male may be distinguished from the fully adult male by the colors 
of its wings and tail, which are brownish instead or black, and by the absence 
of the bright yellow shoulder-patch. 
The adult female (Fig. 2) in summer plumage is almost as bright below 
as the male, but the uniform, brownish olive-green upper parts and the absence 
of a black cap at once distinguish her. After the postnuptial molt, however, 
she cannot be certainly known from the young male. 
The Pale Goldfinch (Astragalinus tristis pallidus) of the Rocky mountain 
region is somewhat larger, and, in winter plumage, decidedly paler, while 
the Willow Goldfinch (A. . aleaoanarns) of the Pacific coast is slightly 
smaller and darker than the eastern form. 
(142) 
