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Avadavat) were due to a moult: the unfortunate bird would be

perpetually moulting throughout the live-long year; but if this

vverethecase I should be continually tormented with letters asking

at what season this Waxbill ought to moult, and informing me

that its cage was always in a litter from perpetual loss of

feathers ($).


A careful study, day by day, of a good series of Weavers,

for a succession of years ; and an examination of the skins of

those which died during the change ; proved conclusively that

the assumption of the summer plumage was only partly effected

by moult; all the short feathers which had to be replaced by

ornamental crests, ruffs, tail-coverts, or flank-plumes, were

moulted out, but the feathers of the back, breast and abdomen

simply altered their colouring. I y ast year I showed Dr. Sharpe

an example in which some of these feathers were particoloured,

others (manifestly of the winter plumage) were washed with

orange, others again were fringed with orange.


One autumn I purchased about two dozen Weavers,

freshly imported, and several of them coining into colour: the

colouring continued to increase steadily until the cold ot

approaching winter began to be felt: then, to my surprise, the

colouring as gradually receded from the feathers leaving all my

birds in winter plumage. No moult took place from first to

last, nor was there a moult of the feathers of the back breast and

abdomen, when these same birds assumed their breeding-plumage

in the succeeding summer.


The case of the Indigo-Bunting is still more convincing;

inasmuch as the greatest care failed to satisfy me, that any

feathers were moulted during the assumption of the summer

dress ; whereas, on the other hand, every example of three or

four which died during the change showed feathers in all parts

of the body partly of the winter and partly of the summer

colouring. I gave one of the specimens to the late Sir William

Flower (who had been half persuaded that the colouring of

feathers was permanent) and he was constrained to admit that

the evidence before him was convincing. In the same skin you

may see every gradation from brown to blue, some feathers

showing the faintest wash of the coming colour, others fringed,

others again splashed with blue : no moult would account for

such peculiarities.



( b ). I daresay many who have Goldfinches have noticed that, just after a moult, the

blaze on the face is sometimes golden, but that it deepens to crimson later on.—A. G. B.



