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ee | Dwicut, Moult of North American Shore Birds. 385 
plumages and moults of other species to be worked out as I have 
done with the few here recorded, which have been selected to 
show that natural moult and wear are the cause of plumage differ- 
ences. The Golden Plover, the Sanderling and the Dunlin have 
long been cited as proof of strange and wonderful color changes 
without moult. If there remains now a peg on which to hang 
such belief, I fail to discover it, and commend to the theorists 
the facts above presented which they have ignored in constructing 
their theories. They have started with the eminently unphysio- 
logical assumption that a grown feather caz absorb fresh coloring 
matter, they have failed to recognize seasonal plumage differ- 
ences between adults and young, males and females and they 
have supposed that the parti-colored feathers, which regularly 
grow on the dividing line between light and dark areas, were in 
process of recoloration. 
In a word they have failed to recognize consecutive moults 
and their effects, and I trust that my present contribution to the 
subject will serve to open the eyes of those who imagine they 
see fresh colors developing in old feathers. 
