BIRD LIVERIES AND THEIR MEANING. 35 



this we shall have still more evidence in the 

 course of these pages. 



Sometimes, in addition to resplendent colours, 

 we get wonderful developments of the feathers 

 themselves. We have not space to do more 

 than make the slightest references to such here, 

 and to give one or two illustrations thereof. 



In the Birds of Paradise alone we get some 

 most marvellous illustrations of this, such as 

 the superb Bird of Paradise and King of 

 Saxony's Bird of Paradise. This last has been 

 quite recently discovered. The long streamers 

 from the head are horny in texture and like 

 nothing else in the bird world. What these are 

 like can be gathered from the accompanying 

 pictures (fig. 1). 



Let us here pause to consider some general 

 rules which appear to govern the colouration of 

 the plumage from infancy to adult life. To be 

 brief, when the male plumage is conspicuously 

 brighter than that of the female, the young in 

 their first plumage after moulting the nestling 

 down resemble the female. The females retain 

 this form permanently ; the young males after a 

 longer or shorter period assume the characteristic 

 male livery. 



When the male and female are both alike and 

 more or less brilliantly coloured, the young don a 

 livery different from both, as is the case in the 

 robin and starling ; or the young may closely 

 resemble both parents and lack only something 

 of their brilliancy, as happens with the king- 

 fishers, for instance. 



The time which it takes for a bird to gain 



