Auk 
332 ALLEN, ‘ Apfosochromatism.’ OH 
‘aptosochromatism ’; but, perhaps to his credit, is content with the 
more commonplace phrase ‘colour-change’ to designate ‘an 
alteration or rearrangement of pigment in the fully-grown feather,” 
including as well “an influx of pigment into a fully formed feather.” 
In ‘ The Zodlogist’ for January, 1900 (pp. 29-31), he has a paper 
‘On the Moult and Colour Changes of the Corn-crake (Crex pra- 
tensis),’’ in which he points out that ‘the Corn-crake under- 
goes a complete moult in spring, the new dress resembling its 
winter plumage.” He adds that ‘the slate-colour of the breed- 
ing-dress is, however, assumed immediately after the moult by a 
change of colour’?! In a later paper, published in ‘The Ibis’ 
for July, 1900 (pp. 464-474), entitled ‘On Moult and Colour- 
change in Birds,’ he again refers to the Corn-crake, and cites this 
case as disproving the widely entertained belief that ‘colour- 
change’ relieves “the severer strain on the system” caused by 
moult since in this species there is both a spring moult anda 
‘colour-change.’ 
The paper just cited is called forth, Mr. Bonhote tells us, by 
“three recent papers on the subject which have appeared in 
American periodicals,” these being (1) Dr. Chadbourne’s in ‘The 
Auk’ (XIV, 1897, pp. 137-149) on the ‘Spring Plumage of the 
Bobolink’; (2) a paper by the present writer published in 1896 
(Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. VIII, pp. 13-44), entitled ‘ Alleged 
Changes of Color in the Feathers of Birds without Molting ’; and 
(3) Mr. Witmer Stone’s paper in the Proceedings of the Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1896, pp. 108-167), on 
‘The Molting of Birds with Special Reference to the Plumages of 
the Smaller Land Birds of Eastern North America.’ Mr. Bon- 
hote, being an ‘aptosochromatist,’ finds much in Dr. Chad- 
bourne’s paper to approve, while the other two articles are made 
the subject of considerable adverse criticism. With regard to 
Mr. Stone’s paper it is pointed out that it is incomplete, inasmuch 
as ‘the Limicola and Gamebirds have been left untouched.” 
As Mr. Bonhote has considerable to say about some of the former, 
as the Ruff and the Golden Plover, it seems a little strange that 
he does not mention Mr. Chapman’s paper on ‘ The Changes of 
Plumage in the Dunlin and Sanderling,’ which immediately pre- 
cedes in the same volume (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., VIII, 1896, 
pp. 9-12) one of the papers to which he devotes attention. 
