310 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



I had now good opportunities of examining the 

 different stages of plumage in the grosbeak, and I 

 did not neglect them. I could now distinguish 

 the sexes by dissection, and I soon found that my 

 conjectures formed last winter were right, and 

 that all the ash-green birds which I shot then were 

 not females, but that the male has an intermediate 

 dress between the nest plumage and the deep-red 

 (which last dress I fancy they do not assume until 

 the third year), so like that of the female, that it is 

 hard to distinguish one from the other. In all 

 these young ash-green males which I shot in April 

 or May the testes were never so fully developed as 

 in the old red males. Two questions now remained 

 to be answered : was this ash-green dress really 

 intermediate between the nest plumage and the 

 handsome red dress in which we see the old male 

 grosbeak always depicted ? and did these young 

 males breed ? Both these points I solved entirely 

 to my own satisfaction. On June 14 I took a nest 

 with four eggs hard sat on, and shot both old 

 birds. The body colouring of both is nearly the 

 same — ash-grey ; in the male slightly tinged with 

 reddish-brown, most on the breast, head reddish- 

 yellow ; in the female, the tinge on the breast and 

 head (especially) is much more yellow; and this 

 is the only difference in the plumage of the two 

 sexes, at this age. This is the usual dress of the 



