_Plumages._--Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the natal down is "smoke-gray." The sexes are alike in the juvenal plumage, which Ridgway (1902) describes as "above plain slate-gray, slightly tinged with olive-green; middle and greater wing-coverts narrowly tipped with white; chin and upper throat pale yellowish; lower throat, chest, sides, and flanks plain light gray (intermediate between mouse gray and gray no. 6); abdomen, anal region, and under tail-coverts white; remiges and rectrices as in adults." A postjuvenal molt, involving all the contour plumage and the wing coverts but not the rest of the wings or the tail, begins about the middle of July. This produces a first winter plumage in which old and young birds are very much alike and the sexes are recognizable. The young male differs little from the adult male, but the bluish gray of the upper parts is more heavily tinged with olive-green, the yellow of the under parts is duller, and the dark throat band is more or less obscured by yellowish tips on the feathers. The young female differs from the adult female in a similar way and is without any brown throat band. Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the first nuptial plumage is "acquired by a partial prenuptial moult which involves chiefly the head, chin and throat, but not the rest of the body plumage, the wings nor the tail. The ashy blue crown feathers faintly dusky centrally, the blackish ones of the sides of the head with a white spot above and below the eye and the yellow or chestnut-tinged chin feathers as far as the pectoral band or farther are assumed by moult. Wear brings the back into contrast with the nape and whitens the lower parts. The wings and tail are browner and more worn than in the adult, especially the primary coverts." A first postnuptial molt in July and early August, which is complete, produces the fully adult plumage. Fall males are similar to spring males, but the blue areas are more or less tipped with greenish and the throat bands with yellowish. Fall females differ in the same way from the spring birds, and there is little, if any, chestnut and no blackish in the throat band. Subsequent molts and plumages are the same as described above for the young birds. Charles C. Ayres, Jr., writes to me of a bird he observed near Ottumwa, Iowa: "It was a typical parula warbler with the exception that the blue-gray color extended over the throat and terminated abruptly on the upper breast. Immediately below the termination of the blue-gray color was the well-defined orange-brown breast band, below which the rest of the breast was yellow."