Descriptions of First Plumage of Cer- 
tain North Am, Bbs. Wm. Brewster. 
46. Cotyle riparia. 
First plumage: male. Upper parts brown, each feather edged with 
ferruginous, this edging broadest on the rump and secondaries, narrowest 
on the crown and nape. Beneath like the adult, but with the pectoral band 
strongly washed with ferruginous, and the throat thickly spotted with the 
same color. In my collection, from Rye Beach, N. H., August 24, 1872. 
Autumnal specimens have the secondaries tipped with white, but not so 
broadly as in Tachycineta bicolor. 
Bull. N.O.O, 3. April, 1878. p, £>V. 
Albinos. 
lfV W. OTTO EMERSON, HAYWARDS, CAE. 
One of the most interesting freaks of nature, 
if we can so call it, is the Albinoism in quadru- 
ped or bird, in some cases very beautiful. A 
number of specimens have come under my ob- 
servation in the Fauna of California bird life, 
and I will try and give the O. &. O. readers 
full benefit of them. 
Bank Swallow (Clivicola riparia) . This Al- 
bino Swallow was first seen by a friend of 
mine, flying with a number of others, near 
their nesting site, the rough face of a high 
gravelly hill, that had been washed down for 
years by the process of hydraulicing for gold, 
near Placerviile (known as Hangtown in early 
days), El Dorado County, 1873. On the third 
day it was seen, the swallows commenced an at- 
tack on their white mate, and did not stop until 
they had killed it, its white coat standing it as 
no truce of peace. The gentleman saw it drop af- 
ter the hard struggle for life, picked it up and 
brought it into town, as a great chriosity, and 
so it proved. I had a good chance to examine 
the swallow, which proved to have been a 
young bird, well feathered, and of a dull ashy 
or rusty white color all over. 
(QtHd.jhi- />• 
Albmiem and Melanism in North 
American Birds. Suthven Deane. 
3 -a 
yj* t 
c. 
npama , 
Ball N.O.O. l a April. 1876, p,2l 
