2 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



AN ALBINO BIRD A bird-lover writes as follows from Stockbridge, Mass. 

 "One day last month I saw a bird entirely strange to 

 me. I thought it perhaps an albino but my brother (who has a summer 

 home in Pittsfield) has seen the same bird. 



"I could not find it among the birds in Audubon, or in any other bird 

 book which we have. When I first saw it it was taking a bath in the gutter 

 of the piazza roof, just outside my window. Then it hopped on to the edge 

 of said roof and stood there with its feathers all fluffed out so that I could 

 not see its shape very distinctly, but its general color was a pale cream white. 

 It was about the size of a catbird and had one or two dark feathers in its 

 tail and in the ends of its wings. On its shoulder it had two bright blue 

 spots, such as might be made by a small child with painty fingers. My 

 brother says that the few darker feathers in wings and tail were blue. I did 

 not see its breast as it stood for most of the time with its back to me. Its 

 head and bill were about the shape of a robin's or a catbird's. 



"I have spent my summers here for fifty odd years and have never seen 

 any bird in the least resembling it. I am well aware that the description 

 is rather vague, but I watched the bird for about ten minutes, when it flew 

 away and I have never seen it since." 



There is little doubt that this bird was an albino bluebird. Albinos 

 appear frequently among our common birds, being, perhaps, most commonly 

 noted among English sparrows and robins. The white blackliird of tradition 

 appears occasionally, a correspondent in the last issue of "Bird-Lore" from 

 Lincoln, Neb., writing thus of them. 



"About noon one day the middle of this month, my friend, Mrs. Pound, 

 heard an unusual fussing among the birds in her back yard. Her home is 

 right in town, not more than three blocks from the business section, but she 

 has a lot of trees, shrubs, and flowers in the back yard. 



"Coming out, she found four of the ordinary Bronzed Crackles in one 

 of the trees, and one exactly like the others except that he had two white 

 feathers, one on either side of the tail, about the middle. The other grackles 

 were not fighting him especially, but were very evidently curious and anxious 

 to find out about the strange bird, and all of them, including the white- 

 feathered one, kept repeating their metallic calls with rather more emphasis 

 than usual. 



"We have seen entirely white or albino grackles in the outskirts of town 

 but this is the first reported around here having just the two white feathers 

 in the tail." 



A pure white barn swallow is reported in the same issue as having been 

 seen in July, 1916, at Crown Point, N. Y. 



Probably every bird observer in cities has seen sparrows with more or 

 less white on them. One was seen on Boston Common, on the northern bank 



