188 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



to that which the race as a whole has under- 

 gone — if young animals, in other words, re- 

 semble their remote ancestors — then the 

 evolution of birds' plumage must have gone 

 pretty steadily in the direction of plainness. 

 Robins, we must believe, once had spotted 

 breasts, as most of their more immediate rel- 

 atives have to this day, and chipping spar- 

 rows and white-throats were streaked like 

 our present song sparrows and baywings. 

 If the world lasts long enough (who knows ?) 

 all birds may become monochromatic. Wing- 

 bars and all such convenient marks of dis- 

 tinction will have vanished. Then, surely, 

 amateurish ornithologists will have their 

 hands fuU to name all the birds without a 

 gun. Then if, by any miraculous chance, a 

 copy of some nineteenth century manual of 

 ornithology shall be discovered, and some 

 great linguist shall succeed in translating it, 

 what a book of riddles it will prove ! Sa- 

 vants will form theories without number con- 

 cerning it, settling down, perhaps, after a 

 thousand years of controversy, upon the be- 

 lief that the author of the ancient work was 

 a man afflicted with color blindness. If not. 



