PLUMAGE OF YOUNG B/RDS. 89 
Not every person is aware that the common red- 
headed woodpecker is no red-head at all during the 
first summer of his buoyant young life, but a black- 
head instead, or, rather, his head and neck are very 
dark gray. However, one day in September I was 
delighted and amused to find an adolescent wood- 
pecker whose head and neck were beginning to 
turn quite reddish, flecked everywhere with white, 
giving him a decidedly picturesque appearance as 
he scuddled up an oblique fence-stake. Of course 
the red-head is always suz generis, but in this case 
he seemed to be more so than usual. Nearly all 
the woodpeckers —the downy, the hairy, and the 
golden-winged — are devoid of the red spots on 
their heads, while young, to prevent them, I suppose, 
from becoming vain. 
Sometimes an entirely foreign tint is introduced 
into the plumage of the young bird during his tran- 
sition state. One day I was surprised to observe 
a decidedly bluish cast on the striped breast of a 
young towhee bunting, which was all the more 
curious because there is no blue whatever in the 
plumage of either the adult male or female. But 
the most curious freak of Nature’s dyeing I have 
ever seen in the bird world was in the case of a 
young scarlet tanager, whose body, including the 
wings, was completely girded with a band of white, 
the border of which was quite irregular. As every 
observer knows, the only colors visible in the adult 
male’s plumage are black and scarlet; still, when 
the scarlet feathers are pushed aside, they show 
