110 DWIGHT 



breeding season, and contrasting with the ** second " and 

 *' third" (or adult) nuptial of successive breeding seasons. It 

 may be simply the first winter plumage plus a certain amount 

 of wear, it may be the result of a complete prenuptial moult 

 or it may be the result of a partial prenuptial moult plus 

 wear of the retained feathers. Consequently it is not infre- 

 quently made up of feathers belonging to three diffferent 

 stages, the old wings and tail of the juvenal dress, part of the 

 old body plumage of the first winter dress and new feathers 

 of the first nuptial dress. The most confusing admixture of 

 these different plumages may be seen in some species, individual 

 variation and sex being also potent factors in producing combi- 

 nations of feathers that furnish even to-day some very puzzling 

 problems. Species that complete the postju venal moult before 

 moving south and those that consummate their prenuptial 

 moult in our latitude offer at the present time no problems at 

 all, and when material illustrating the moults of species that 

 undergo the process while in distant lands is obtained, I ven- 

 ture to predict that problems will cease to exist. It is sugges- 

 tive that theories have clustered chiefly about brightly colored 

 species few of which attain adult dress without passing through 

 a series of moults, the counterpart of which may be found 

 among less conspicuous species. Bright adults taken at the 

 same season as young birds variously sprinkled with irregular 

 patches of color have furnished a theme for endless argument, 

 and assertions of ''restoration" and '' repigmentation." These 

 irregular patches will be found to correspond in every case with 

 the points in the feather tracts where the moult usually begins 

 or in the series of feathers that ordinarily precede other series. 

 There is some irregularity, of course, but these feathers will 

 almost invariably be less worn than those adjacent. I find just 

 such patches and sprinklings of feathers on birds of incon- 

 spicuous plumage, and I can prove their growth at the pre- 

 nuptial moult in many species of which I have large series and 

 in some others from southern latitudes represented by only 

 a few specimens. It would be difficult to say why some 

 species pass their first breeding season in the plumage of the 



