72 
Brewer’s Notes on Junco Caniceps. 
female bird, like the male, is several years — at least three — in attaining 
its full plumage ; and that the two sexes, when fully adult, can only be 
distinguished by the fact that, in the female, the throat, though strongly 
tinged with black, is never pure black as in the male.” Long ago I dis- 
covered these facts, as the bird is an abundantly breeding summer resi- 
dent here, where I have taken several of their nests in a single walk. 
With a large series of specimens before me, I can fully indorse Mr. 
Merriam’s views. The females of the second summer are entirely with- 
out any black upon the head, and I have frequently found them sitting 
upon their eggs in this condition. Males of the same age show very evi- 
dent traces of black. Only in extreme examples does the black on the 
hood and throat of the female approach the purity of those parts in the 
male. 
9. Siurus motacilla, (Vieillot) Coues. Large -billed Water- 
Thrush. — I wish to call attention to the fact that the chin and throat of 
this species are not “ entirely immaculate,” * as described in the books. On 
the contrary, I have never seen a specimen, in the large number of birds 
belonging to this species which I have handled, that lacked minute mark- 
ings of brown on the chin and throat, though these are much less strong 
than in S. ncevius. There is also a whitish stripe extending from the base 
of the maxilla to the back of the eye, involving the under lid, and sepa- 
rated, anteriorly, from the superciliary line, extending from the bill, 
above the eye, to the nape, by a narrow dark band. This stripe is often 
quite conspicuous. 
NOTES ON JUNCO CANICEPS AND THE CLOSELY ALLIED 
FORMS. 
BY T. M. BREWER. 
Among a collection of nests and eggs received the past season 
from Colorado, coming from the vicinity of Summit County, the 
highest inhabited portion of that State, are three nests of the Junco 
caniceps. They are assigned to the common resident Junco of that 
region by Mr. Edwin Carter, who identified them ; the parents, in 
each instance, having been shot on the nest, and ascertained to be 
the bird there known as the Cinereous Snow-bird. Unfortunately 
the individual parents were not preserved with their nests, so that 
it is now impossible to verify these identifications. It therefore re- 
mains an interesting question whether the eggs of th q Junco caniceps 
exhibit such surprising variations as are shown in these sets, or 
* Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Hist, of N. Am. Birds, Yol. I, p. 287, 1874. 
