1922] Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the Stikine Region 281 



neutral and white. This upon examination is found to owe its appearance to 

 those longer webs, which arising towards the root of each feather, extend as 

 far outwards as the webs which arise nearer its tip, being very pale or white, 

 and thus relieving, on both sides, the last mentioned darker webs (Wolley, 1857, 

 p. 56). 



In Gould's "Birds of Great Britain" there is a colored plate fig- 

 uring adult birds, a nest, and five young. Of the young, three show 

 the back and wings, all with wax tips to the secondaries. These figures 

 are from young taken by Dresser, July 4, 1858, but although five 

 juveniles are figured, in the text the statement is made that four 

 young were in the nest and just two were caught. ( Gould, 1873, vol. 

 2, pi. 21.) 



Bishop (1900a, p. 89) describes three fully fledged young from the 

 Yukon region as having the waxlike appendages to the secondaries, 

 but of a paler red than in the adult. One of these same young birds 

 is described in detail by Ridgway (1904, p. 106). Evidently but few 

 young birds of this species have been collected. Judging from those 

 that have been taken, the waxlike secondary tips occur as frequently 

 in the juvenal plumage as in. the later stages. In fact, with respect 

 to all the variable features in this species, wax tips, white or yellow 

 wing markings, and yellow tail band, it is not possible to detect any 

 correlation between the extent of these markings or the intensity of 

 their color, and either age, sex, or season. "We have, as described, birds 

 in juvenal plumage as brightly marked as any adult. The fact that 

 in the brood of five collected the four males have the wax tipping and 

 the one female lacks these appendages, gives the appearance of this 

 being a sexual feature. To offset this, the female parent of this brood 

 had the wax tips fully developed. Then, the female parent of a set 

 of five eggs, taken the same day, has the wax tips almost entirely 

 lacking. 



In commenting upon the Bohemian waxwing as a winter visitant 

 to Montana, where they were abundant, Cameron (1908, p. 46) says: 



Only a small proportion had yellow primary bands; in the great majority 

 these were white. Most birds had no red sealing wax appendages visible and 

 were presumably the young of the year. Others, besides showing white edging 

 to the ends of all the primaries except the two first, had four wax tips on the 

 secondaries. These may have been birds of eighteen months old which had 

 moulted twice, having regard to the fact that the waxwing moults only once a 

 year — in October. A few of the birds had brilliant yellow wing-bars and 

 numerous vermilion appendages, and I concluded that this small minority were 

 old birds. 



