Chap. XVI. NOVELTY ADMIEED. 231 



of some parrots can hardly be said to be more beautiful, 

 at least according to our taste, than the females, but 

 they differ from them in such points, as the male 

 haying a rose-coloured collar instead of, as in the 

 female, "a bright emeraldine narrow green collar;" or 

 in the male having a black collar instead of **' a yellow 

 demi-collar in front," with a pale roseate instead of a 

 plum-blue head.^^ As so many male birds have for 

 their chief ornament elongated tail-feathers or elongated 

 crests, the shortened tail, formerly described in the 

 male of a humming-bird, and the shortened crest of 

 the male o^oosander almost seem like one of the manv 

 oj)posite changes of fashion which we admire in our 

 own dresses. 



Some members of the heron family offer a still more 

 curious case of novelty in colouring having appa- 

 rently been appreciated for the sake of novelty. The 

 young of the Ardea asha are white, the adults being 

 dark slate-coloured ; and not only the young, but the 

 adults of the allied BupJms coromandus in their winter 

 plumage are white, this colour chauging into a rich 

 golden-buff duriug the breeding-season. It is incredible 

 that the young of these two species, as well as of some 

 other members of the same family,^^ should have been 

 specially rendered pure white and thus made conspi- 

 cuous to their enemies; or that the adults of one of 

 these two species should have been specially rendered 

 white duricg the winter in a country which is never 



^' See Jerdon on the genus Palseoruis, ' Birds of India,' vol, i. p. 

 258-260. 



^^ The 3'oung of Ardea rufescens and A. coerulea of the U. States are 

 likewise white, the adults being coloured in accordance with their spe- 

 cific names. Audubon (' Ornith. Biograph}^,' vol. iii. p. 41G ; vol. iv. 

 p. oS) seems rather pleased at the thought that this remarkable change 

 of plumage will greatly " disconcert the systematiats." 



