BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 347 



XANTHOCEPHALUS XANTHOCEPHALUS (Bonaparte). 

 YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. 



Adult male in sumTner. — Head, neck, and chest yellow or orange 

 (varying from canary yellow to almost cadmium orange, rarely to 

 saturn red); lores, orbital region, anterior portion of malar region, 

 and chin black; rest of plumage uniform black, relieved by a white 

 patch on the wing, involving the primary coverts (except their tips 

 and shafts) and portions of the outermost greater coverts; anal region 

 yellow or orange; bill, legs, and feet black; iris brown. 



Adult male in winter. — Similar to the summer plumage, but yellow 

 or orange of pileum and hindneck obscured (sometimes almost con- 

 cealed) by dusky tips to the feathers. 



Adult female in sum,m£r. — General color dusky grayish brown or 

 sooty; no white on wings; a more or less distinct superciliary stripe, 

 malar region, chin, and throat dull whitish, usually more or less tinged 

 with yellow, passing into light yellow (naples yellow or buff-yeilow) 

 on chest; breast bix)adly streaked with white; anal tuft yellowish; bill, 

 legs, and feet black; iris brown. 



Adult female in winter. — Similar to the summer female, but super- 

 ciliary stripe and cheeks (malar region) dull buff -yellowish ; chin and 

 throat duller whitish; chest deeper yellow (ocher yellow), and white 

 streaks on breast less distinct; bill dusky brownish, paler on mandible, 

 especially basally. 



Immature male, first winter. — Similar to the winter female, but 

 larger; general color darker (nearly black on pileum, auriculars, and 

 orbital region); superciliary stripe deeper ocher yellow; malar region, 

 chin, and throat chrome yellow, and chest dull cadmium yellow or 

 orange-ochraceous; no white streaks on breast; primary coverts nar- 

 rowly tipped with white. (In following spring and summer similar, 

 but yellow of chest, etc., purer, pileum, etc., blacker, and primary 

 coverts without white tips.) 



Young [first plumage). — Head, neck, and chest pale cinnamon or 

 dull ochraceous-buff, paler (dull whitish) on chin and throat; pileum 

 with a median stripe of dusky; rest of plumage mostly dusky, the 

 feathers (especially wing-coverts and tertials) more or less distinctly 

 margined with pale cinnamon or dull tawny; breast more or less 

 •streaked with dull whitish; median line of breast and abdomen and 

 thighs dull whitish. 



Nestling. — General color plain cinnamon or cinnamon-buff (varying 

 to clay color), much paler on under parts of body, where sometimes 

 inclining to dull whitish; on the back, scapulars, and rump the buffy 

 or cinnamomeous color more or less broken by dusky bases to the 

 feathers; edge of wing whitish; greater wing-coverts very broadly 

 tipped with whitish or pale cinnamon-buffy; primary-coverts more 

 narrowly tipped with whitish; bill brownish; legs and feet light-colored 

 (flesh color in life?). 



