Descriptions of First Plumage of Cer- 
tain Nor^h Am, Bbs. Wm. Brewster. 
42. Pyranga rubra. 
Occasional plumage : male. Wings and tail black; entire plumage of 
body rich orange, with a greenish tinge on flanks and anal region. From 
a specimen in my cabinet, collected by Mr. C. J. Maynard, at Waltham, 
Mass., May 27, 1869. This remarkable specimen I for a long time con- 
sidered unique, but I have recently examined another in the possession of 
Mr. Arthur Smith, of Brookline, which is its precise counterpart, and 
Mr. Kid g way tells me he has seen still others. This plumage is not to be 
confounded with the ordinary immature one of this bird, where the scarlet 
is simply of a lighter shade or mixed with patches of yellowish-green. It 
is a pronounced uniform coloring, and apparently a completed plumage. 
Unquestionably it is abnormal, but hardly to be placed in a category with 
albinism, and probably it is not very unfrequent. Adult males of P. 
rubra change to the greenish autumnal plumage of the female and young, 
a fact not generally known. They may in that stage be distinguished by 
the blacker coloring of the wings and tail. I have never seen the young 
males in autumn with red feathers appearing in the plumage, as spoken of 
by writers ; probably such specimens may be referred to adult birds taken 
in August or September, with the moult only partially effected ; many of 
such examples I have now before me, all unquestionably adults. The 
scarlet bands on the wing-coverts of some specimens are to be regarded as 
individual adornments, independent of age. Many comparatively imma- 
ture specimens possess them, while in some of the finest birds they are 
wanting. 
Bull. N.O.Q, 3i April, 1878. p. 
Animistic Plumages. R.Peane. 
8. Pyranga rubra. Scaklet Tanager. — Mr. F. T. Jencks, of Prov- 
idence, R. 1., has kindly sent me a specimen with the outer primary o 
one wine- white, shot at Cranston, R. I., May, 1878. In a recent letter 
from Mr F. A. Lucas of Rochester, N. Y., he mentions having seen a 
Tanager of this species with five of the tail-feathers white. 
Bull N.O.O. 5 , Jan., 3880, p, 2, 
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