A postjuvenal molt takes place, between September and December, of the body plumage, some scapulars and some wing coverts. This produces the first winter plumage, which is like that of the adult, except for the retained juvenal scapulars and wing coverts. I have seen birds in this plumage as early as September 30. A partial prenuptial molt, similar to that of the adult, produces during the spring a first nuptial plumage in which young birds can be distinguished from adults by varying amounts of retained winter feathers. At the next complete molt, the first postnuptial young birds assume the fully adult winter plumage. Adults have a partial prenuptial molt between February and June, involving most of the body plumage, but not all of the scapulars, wing coverts, and tertials. There is much individual variation in the time of this molt. I have seen birds in full nuptial plumage as early as March 21 and in full winter plumage as late as May 13. The complete postnuptial molt begins in July with the body molt, which is usually completed before October. I have seen adults in full nuptial plumage as late as September 6. The red-breasted birds reported by Mr. Mackay (1893) as shot on Cape Cod in December and February must have been exceptional cases of delayed or omitted molt; the February birds may have been cases of early spring molt. _Food._--Doctor Ekblaw says: Their food when they first come to the North is scarce, and when the weather is unduly unfavorable they are hard put to it to find enough to live. They probe about the grasses and sedges on the wet moors and along the swales and pools, and sometimes wade breast deep into the water to pick out the small but abundant life that swarms in some of the pools, mostly crustacea and larvae. The upper mandible is relatively soft and pliant. Sometimes they search the tide pools left at low water, or poke about the rocks and gravel along shore. Other Arctic explorers have referred to the scanty food of the knot in the north; H. Chichester Hart (1880) says that "of a number of knots' stomachs examined, only one contained any food; this consisted of two caterpillars, one bee, and pieces of an Alga;" Colonel Feilden (1879) saw knots "feeding eagerly on the buds of _Saxifraga oppositifolia_;" Mr. Manniche (1910) "saw them running on the snow eagerly occupied in picking up the seed of _Carex_ and _Lazula_ tufts, the ends of which here and there appeared over the snow." Later on, when the ponds and marshes are teeming with animal life, they have plenty of food.