82 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



been noticed that birds, when transferred from cold to 

 warm countries, have become darker after moulting. 



Chapters have been written upon this variation in 

 plumage, but Baird, Brewer, and Kidgway, in ' ' North 

 American Land Birds," tell the story in so few words 

 that I take the liberty of quoting the following: " These 

 three varieties, when based on specimens from the regions 

 where their characters are most exaggerated and uni- 

 form, appear sufficiently distinct; but when we find that 

 specimens from the New England States have the rufous 

 bodies of umbellus, and that examples from Eastern 

 Oregon and Washington have the dark, rusty bodies of 

 sabini and gray tails of umbelloides, and continue to 

 see that the transition between any two of the three 

 forms is gradual with locality, we are unavoidably led to 

 the conclusion that they are merely geographical modifi- 

 cations of one species." 



To show to what extent this individual variation, or 

 whatever we choose to call it, is often carried, I quote 

 from the private letter of a gentleman well known to 

 American sportsmen: 



4 'Many years ago I killed a ruffed grouse near 

 Albany, N. Y., which had one side of its tail all black 

 a case of partial melanism; and in November or Decem- 

 ber, 1856, I saw a flock of the same birds near Fort Rip- 

 ley, Minn., one of which was entirely black. The flock, 

 of perhaps thirty, passed within a few feet of me while 

 I was watching a deer from behind a log, and, as they 

 were not alarmed, I noted the bird carefully. . . . 

 One of my female wood-ducks has an extra- wide white 

 stripe at the base of the bill, one has almost none; one 

 more white under the throat, etc." 



Nearly grown birds are thought by some authors to 

 be darker than old ones, but the difference is frequently 

 so slight that persons comparing the two disagree. 



