HIS FIRST SUIT 23 
“feather tracts,’ with spaces of bare skin be- 
tween them. These bare places do not show, 
because the feathers lap over each other and 
cover them. 
The pattern of the feather tracts is not the 
same in all birds. A few birds of the Ostrich 
family have feathers all over the body. 
There is another curious thing about the nest- 
ling plumage. You would expect a young bird 
to look like his father or mother; and some of 
them do. Many nestlings are dressed exactly 
like their mothers; and not until they are a 
year old do the young males get a coat like their 
father’s. Some. of them, indeed, do not have 
their grown-up suits for two or three years. 
Then, again, many young birds have dresses 
different from both parents. Young robins have 
speckled breasts, and spots on the shoulders, 
which the old birds have not. 
When the father and mother are dressed alike, 
as the song sparrows are, the young birds gen- 
erally differ from both of them. When the father 
and mother are different, like orioles or blue- 
birds, the young are usually like the mether the 
first season. In some cases the father, mother, 
and young are almost exactly alike. 
Birds who live on the ground need dresses of 
dull colors, or they would not be very safe. The 
