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A CHAPTER ON THE VARIETIES OF ANIMALS. 

 By the Rev. Francis Orpen Morris, B.A. 

 " Varium et mutabile semper." 

 (Continued from p. 211.) 

 I have made notes of a few more varieties of birds and other animals, which 

 have been brought under my observation or to my knowledge ; and when you 

 have a spare page, if you consider them worth insertion, others I dare say 

 will think so too, as it certainly is pleasing to observe the curious changes 

 which present themselves to us, and interesting to note the species in which the 

 variations mostly occur. In a letter received from my brother, Mr. B. R. Morris, 

 he says, — " I have lately seen two black Sparrows, in this city" (Dublin). " Their 

 bills are light-coloured, and, contrasted with the dingy black, or mixture rather 

 of dark brown and black, which is otherwise universal, they look very curious 

 among the other Sparrows. The primary wing feathers are of a deeper black 

 than those of the rest of the body. I have seen a Sparrow with white wings, 

 and total albinos are tolerably common, but I think I never heard of a black one 



before. — C. S , of Hawksworth, Nottinghamshire, informs me that he once 



saw a straw-coloured Sparrow. It was shot, but unfortunately was too much 

 injured to be stuffed. I remember, five or six years ago, seeing a Blackbird in 

 confinement which had a mixture of black and white — the woman that owned it 

 (at Sherborne) told me that she had had it several years, and that it was only 

 within the last three or four that it had begun to change its plumage. At each 

 moult it became whiter and whiter, and she expected that it would turn entirely 

 white in a short time." 



Mr. Dale, in a letter lately received, informs me of a white Woodcock, a 

 dusky one, and another with white wings, in the possession of Sir Richard Colt 

 Hoare, Baronet. The latter, with the young ones, was stuffed. A nest was 

 also found on Middlemarsh Common, Dorsetshire, April 1836.* The Snowy Owl 

 varies very much in plumage. Independent of the difference in the plumage of 

 the sexes, some are much darker and more mottled than others — almost every 

 shade occurs down to nearly a pure white. The Turnstone varies very much in 

 plumage, and so does the Ptarmigan ; but " omnibus hoc notum est." — Many birds 

 change their winter for a summer dress, ** and when the hour again comes round" 

 resume their former appearance, regardless of fashion, content with the admirable 



* Mr. Dale informs me of his having found a red Cowslip growing wild, which is, I believe, a 

 very great curiosity. It is the first of which I ever heard of that colour. The next thing will b» 

 to find a blue Dahlia. 



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