414 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOP ISLANDS. 



Immature S , winter plumage. — Pattern as in summer adult, but very much less 

 definitely marked, especially on head and neck. White of face and throat more 

 extensive even than in first immature plumage. Dark breast feathers broadly tipped 

 with white. Dark dorsal feathers margined with dusky buff and broadly and irregu- 

 larly shaded at tips with white or whitish. Pileum dark drab gray, each feather with 

 a pronounced blackish center. Feet and bill as before. 4149, W. P. Collector, 

 Smiths Island, Virginia, September 2, 1895. Wearing results in a darkening of the 

 back and across the breast, though never to the same extent as in interpres. Thus 

 immature morinella are readily distinguishable by smaller size, paler colors, larger 

 throat patch less definitely margined, and whiter face, and paler pileum. The blackish 

 of the wings is much less extensive and the margins of the dark feathers of the back 

 are much loss buffy and rufous, being almost whitish. In the winter j)lumage 

 morinella is very similar to interpres of similar age, but the black of the back and 

 breast is much less intense, and the throat patch is much less sharply defined. The 

 general hue of interpres is always darker. Specimens in undoubted winter non-breed- 

 ing plumage are so few, and these so badly made up and so old, that it is difficult to 

 determine the extent of change that has taken place. Usually the specimens are 

 unsexed or wrongly sexed. The winter dress is undoubtedly worn for but a brief 

 period. The change to the breeding dress is by a molt, and not by a " change in the 

 pattern of the feather," as stated by Dr. Sharpe, (Cat. B. Br. Mus., Vol. XXIV, 98). 

 In a molting specimen collected on Marguerite Island, Venezuela, by Lieutenant 

 Robinson (No. 1D1634) there are in the wings feathers of three plumages, those of the 

 new winter, a few of the chestnut summer, and a number of the previous winter's, 

 these last being mostly present in the tertials. 



The common turnstone of eastern North America, as shown above, is quite a 

 different bird to its Palearctic relative. It is smaller and more highly colored, and 

 lacks the extensive black areas of interpres, besides lacking the chestnut and black 

 mottling of that bird on the median wing coverts. The scapular and tertiary ijlumes 

 are usually without the black, and are much more highly and more extensively chest- 

 nut. My series of 32, fresh male, Smiths and Cobbs islands, Virginia, specimens, all 

 in complete breeding dress, together with some dozen other males taken at various 

 places in the eastern United States and in Mexico, show little variation, and all agree 

 closely with that described above, though several are much more highly colored. The 

 females of morinella never appear to reach the extreme blackness observable in interpres 

 from the Pacific. Two males, collected by myself, one at Mingan, Labrador, and the 

 other on Smiths Island, Virginia, in August and September, show the extent of sum- 

 mer wearing, and are thus comparable with specimens ot interpres collected on the 

 Pribilofs by Mr. Elliott and myself at about the same dates. One specimen only of 

 interpres collected by Mr. Elliott approaches my autumn morinella in the amount of 

 faded chestnut on the center median coverts, but the extensive blackness and larger 

 size puts to rest any doubts as to its proper place. One specimen of morinella, No. 

 154384, S , Smiths Island, Dr. E. M. Hasbrouck, has the chestnut of the interscapular 

 much decreased in area and the black correspondingly increased, but the other color- 

 ation and its size prcTent any doubt as to its place. These are the only specimens 

 that I have seen showing much variation. Wearing of the feathers of morinella, both 

 males and females, tends to a graying of the plumage as viewed from above- in 

 interpres it itensifies the blackness, so that autumnal birds are much blacker than 

 spring and summer specimens. None of these Virginia male specimens are in 



