244 SUMMER 



have left the nest, is more protective than that of their 

 parents. Young blackbirds are a charmingly evasive 

 speckled brown, showing, we are told, their affinity to the 

 thrush from which they have separated. But to-day, at all 

 times and at all seasons, nothing could be better calculated 

 to challenge attention than the cock blackbird. That mass 

 of unbroken black draws the eye, almost as much as if he 

 could compass all the colours of a parrot. How the young 

 robin with its pretty speckled brown breast disappears into 

 the shadows of a bush where the yellow-brown back or 

 red breast of the parent would challenge attention. The 

 young cast off their baby clothes at very different dates. 

 In perhaps the majority of cases the male begins to put 

 forth his peacock colours about the time that he is growing 

 strong on the wing, and needs less protection of colour. 

 Sometimes you come upon well-grown birds, thrushes, for 

 example, on which the pretty down of their infancy still 

 clings oddly to the grown feathers, and occasional instances 

 have been noted of a persistent down. Those who notice 

 the partridges shot in September will find a fair number 

 still distinguished by the pointed feathers that are rounded 

 off in most birds by the time they are strong on the wing. 

 The livery is doubtless associated with maturity in other 

 more essential forms. Many gulls are not mature till their 

 third year ; and the townsman again has the chance 

 of observing this belated change of livery in the black- 

 headed gulls that crowd up the Thames and flock in the 

 parks and reservoirs. In summer birds of the previous 

 year are still spotted with odd patches of colour, appearing 

 quite promiscuously ; and you can sometimes often detect 

 the third-year bird from the second, especially the males in 

 spring. 



In these young, at any rate, there is no suggestion of 



