86 THE FINCHES 



Darwinian standpoint, the crossbill is interesting. There is its colour, 

 for instance in the male a rich crimson, touched with the rose which, 

 as he glints amidst the dark, yet often sun-flecked, fir-forests of his 

 native north, or over the snow that enshrouds them, must at times make 

 him disadvantageous^ conspicuous. None, surely, but such as go all 

 lengths in the theory of protective coloration to whom, were they free, 

 in such a case, to apply it, a crimson sunshade, or even its bearer, 

 would appear unobtrusive could explain such plumage through such 

 an agency. 



And yet, in some sort in a roundabout, and, as it were, underhand 

 way the protection theory crept in, in regard to the male crossbill 

 (leaving the female aside) almost before it was well understood ; at 

 least the supposed facts on which it could take action were ready 

 waiting for it, by the time it appeared. For, owing to the vagaries 

 of some caged specimens, it was strangely supposed that the bird, 

 after making, as it were, a brilliant debut, belied its early promise, and 

 became duller and duller, as men, but not birds, are accustomed to do. 

 In a word, a controversy arose as to whether, in its " unhouselled, free 

 condition," it was the male dull yellowish crossbill that became bright 

 red, or the male bright red one that became dull yellow. If the latter, 

 then the bird, though unaccountably handicapped at its start in life, was 

 yet in course of becoming " protected." Possibly a few yellowites may 

 still linger amongst us, just as a few Jacobites still do, but those who 

 have read Naumann's remarks on this subject, supplemented and re- 

 inforced as they are by later German and other continental authorities, 

 cannot doubt that, under natural conditions, whatever passage takes 

 place is, as any evolutionist, who is also a believer in sexual selection, 

 would have expected, from the duller to the brighter hue. That the 

 contrary is not infrequently the case with crossbills kept in captivity, 

 is doubtless to be explained as a reversion to the earlier coloration, 

 when the sexes were less differentiated, due, most probably, to some 

 obscure disturbance in the system, attendant on so sad a state men 

 too become yellow in prison. The various theories, however, which 



