Notes on the Plumage of North American Sparrows 
FIFTH PAPER 
By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 
(See frontispiece) 
Arkansas Goldfinch (Figs. 1-3). This species presents marked varia- 
tions in plumage which the materials at my command do not satisfactorily 
explain. Males in first winter plumage resemble the female (Fig. 3), but have 
traces of a black cap and no white in the tail. The prenuptial molt appears. 
to be complete in both the immature and the adult birds, and the former now 
usually acquires the plumage with a black mottled back shown in Fig. 3. It 
is probable that the black, or essentially black, back is not acquired until the 
second prenuptial molt, and it is thereafter retained; although, as has just 
been said, the adult with the immature, has a complete spring as well as fall 
molt. 
The Green-backed Goldfinch (Astragalinus psaltria hesperophilus, Fig. 4),. 
the western form of this species has the back plain olive-green, and between 
this and the black-backed race there is a somewhat confusing series of inter- 
grades, resembling, when adult, immature specimens of the black-backed bird 
(Astragalinus psaltrta psaliria). 
Lawrence’s Goldfinch (Figs. 5, 6). Lawrence’s Goldfinch is almost con- 
fined to California during the nesting-season, and, like many birds with a. 
limited range, its characters are sharply defined, and it has no near allies with 
which, for purposes of identification, comparison is necessary. The juvenal 
plumage of both sexes resembles that of the adult female, but the breast is. 
sooty gray, with no, or but the faintest, suggestion of yellow; while young 
males may be known by the greater amount of white in the tail. 
At the postjuvenal molt, the tail-feathers, wing-quills, and primary coverts. 
are retained, while apparently the rest of the wing-feathers and the body 
plumage is molted. The bird now passes into first winter plumage, which 
resembles that of the adult, in summer, but in the male the nape and back are 
decidedly browner, but with more or less greenish yellow concealed at the bases 
of the feathers, afi the hind portion of the black cap is tipped with brownish;, 
young and adults are now practically indistinguishable. 
There appears to be no spring molt, and the gray, greenish yellow back of 
the breeding male is acquired by wear and fading. 
The seasonal variations of the female are less pronounced, and there is 
little difference in color between summer and winter specimens. 
