180 Bird - Lore 
The position of these wing-bars is such that a slight puffing of the breast 
and side feathers, on the one hand, and of the scapulars, on the other,—a com- 
mon practice with birds in general,—is apt to cast them into shadow; while a 
greater, but still not uncommon, puffing or fluffing out of the feathers may 
quite conceal the coverts, one and all. Hence the extent of the bars, or. for that 
matter, of any other marking, when still confined to these coverts, is not neces- 
sarily of the first importance. In this connection, see an excellent photograph, 
by Clifford H. Pangburn, of a Redpoll—page 273 of Birp-LorE, November— 
December, 1909. This picture illustrates how the first wing-bar (tips of the 
middle coverts) may be nearly or cjuite concealed by the scapulars alone. 
As for Redpolls in particular, the popular notion that their wing-bars are 
of no importance as field-marks is a mistake, nor do I know a single species 
of bird fairly easy to approach, having such wing-bars, in which the latter 
are not field-marks. 
However, it is certainly true that the Redpoll seems less given to display- 
ing his wing-bars than, for example, does the Tree Sparrow. His small size, as 
compared with that of our other winter Finches, and his association usually 
with the very severest of winter weather, suggest that he may be more habitu- 
ally ‘‘puffed out with the cold”’—an expressive, if not a strictly scientific 
phrase—than the others. Therefore, I venture the opinion that the visibility of 
the Redpoll’s wing-bars in the field is, after all, largely a matter of temperature. 
WINGS OF TREE SPARROW TO SHOW VARIATION IN BARS 
