1922] Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the Stikine Region 277 



A similar table of 38 specimens of the American subspecies in this 

 Museum of which the sex has been ascertained is as follows : 



Males Females 



2 have 3 tips 1 has no tips 



6 have 4 tips 1 has traces of 2 tips 



5 have 5 tips 2 have 3 tips 



8 have 6 tips 2 have 4 tips 



1 has 7 tips 2 have 5 tips 



— 7 have 6 tips 



22 1 has 7 tips 



16 



Besides those thus tabulated there are certain other variants. One 

 male has a faint trace of a wax tip on a secondary on one side only. 

 One female has two on one side, three on the other. One female has 

 four on one side, two on the other. One female has five on one side, six 

 on the other. Stevenson seemed to believe that such irre^larities were 

 due to accidents or wear, but in these birds there is no evidence to 

 show that the unadorned secondaries had received any injury. One 

 female is indicated in the table as having traces of two tips. They 

 are so faint that they can be seen only by the most careful scrutiny, 

 and are devoid of red color. Of all the adult specimens examined, 

 forty-five in number, just one was found (a female) with absolutely 

 no trace of the wax tips. In several cases these tips show a decided 

 tendency to split up like feather barbs. It thus appears that these 

 appendages are formed by the coalescing of barbs, and not by an en- 

 largement of the tip of the central shaft, though the shaft, too, is 

 involved in the general change. The ornamentation, in fact, may well 

 have begun with the coloring of the shaft, spreading later over the 

 adjoining feather barbs. The last stage would have been the coales- 

 cing of the barbs, forming the waxlike scale as it is now seen. Various 

 steps of this hypothetical evolutionary development are supplied in the 

 wing and tail feathers of different birds of this series. 



The primaries of the waxwing have a white or yellow marking near 

 the tip. This marking is sometimes confined to the outer web, and 

 sometimes continued on to the inner web ; the latter, producing a 

 V-shaped marking, has been designated py Stevenson {loc. cit.) as the 

 ' ' return margin. ' ' In the brightest colored birds these markings are 

 bright yellow on the inner primaries, becoming more and more white 

 on the outermost ones. In the duller colored birds they are white 

 throughout. The V-shaped character is invariably accompanied by 



