480 Remarks on the Plumage of Birds. 



one of a common linnet, with the crown and breast bright 

 red, the neck ash colour, and wings and tail more broadly 

 edged with white, which proved to be a fertile female on dis- 

 section, containing eggs considerably advanced. This is not 

 unusual in the little redpole, or rose linnet ; though in neither 

 case, so far as I have hitherto seen, do such females equal an 

 old cock bird in brilliancy ; which is the reason the fact has 

 been hitherto overlooked, as dull-looking specimens are 

 rarely thought worthy of preservation; besides which, few 

 observers would have deemed it necessary to look to the sex 

 of a red-breasted linnet, concluding, from this circumstance 

 alone, that the bird was a male. Even the case now recorded 

 was quite accidentally discovered ; the specimen, which had 

 been caged several weeks, having been opened merely to as- 

 certain the cause of its death. I believe that the male linnets 

 require two years at least, if not more to attain their summer 

 aspect in full perfection. 



Of fifty-eight specimens of the purre, killed during the last 

 week in May, and examined together, the bill was found to 

 vary from less than an inch to more than an inch and a half; a 

 corresponding variance being noticeable in the godwit genus, 

 some of which have the bill longer by upwards of a half than 

 others. This difference, in the same sex, depends princi- 

 pally (as it is well known) upon age ; a fact which has been of 

 assistance towards ascertaining that it is the older birds 

 which chiefly renew their feathers in spring; but it always 

 attains a greater length in the female sex, which (as it is equally 

 well known), with the one exception of the polygamous ruff J 

 is, in all this tribe of birds, of superior magnitude to the male. 

 With regard to the plumage of these purres, I found that ten 

 exhibited no appearance of black upon the throat; but that 

 all, one old female excepted, had the upper parts more or less 

 reddened. A second specimen, evidently one of a late hatch 

 of the preceding year, had but a very few red feathers, which 

 were being acquired by moulting. In the rest, new feathers 

 were every where mingled with tinged old ones : four had very 

 little black on the lower parts ; and not one of the whole 

 number was absolutely perfect, presenting various interme- 

 diate stages. A female, obtained in the market during the 

 first week in July, which, from the denuded state of its under 

 parts, had evidently been incubating, exhibited but very in- 

 complete summer livery. 



Of two specimens of Squatardla cinerea, killed also during 

 the last week in May, when others of the same species had 

 assumed their full summer appearance (which is obtained, as 

 in the golden plover, both by moulting and change of colour, 



