222 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS. 



into the room wliere they were and witli her claws tore the 

 neck of the little female. But why should they have been 

 afraid of the baby unless they classed four-footed beasts and 

 creeping things together ? 



When lirst captured they had two notes, — their low, pleas- 

 ant, conversational talk with each other, and their shrill alarm 

 note, which they uttered when they saw flocks of their mates 

 outside, a peculiar, piercing call, fit for the company of pine 

 trees and a home in the North. The last of February the male 

 began to sing, a little whispering warble, sweet and ventrilo- 

 quial, performed with the bill shut, and so hard to be located 

 that when the birds were not more than a foot away it was 

 difficult to tell which was the singer. Yet through a closed 

 door the song could be heard, apparently just as loud. It is 

 probable that the male would have improved in his singing in 

 a few weeks, for his nearest relatives are good songsters, and 

 he himself is not without a reputation. 



We were now able to be sure that the singer was a male, 

 for, during the few weeks that the birds had been with us, one 

 of them had been slowly, but unmistakably, turning red. Had 

 this one been alone we should hardly have believed the change 

 had occurred ; but, knowing that in the beginning both were 

 alike, it was easy to see that the male's color had spread and 

 deepened, had suffused his breast and crept down his back 

 and brightened on his head and rump till these parts were no 

 longer yellow, but a coppery red. And yet the change had 

 come about without the loss of a single feather, except the 

 primaries torn out in battle and two tail feathers broken by 

 the cage. If new feathers grew, we did not see them, though 

 the birds were often in our hands. Here was a case of " color- 

 change without moult," a subject of great interest to scientists 

 and not yet fully explained. 



