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COLOR AND SEASON, 37 
plumage, and not assume the dress of maturity until the 
second or even the third spring, which is the case with 
the Orchard Oriole. 
Color and Season.—Quite apart from the changes in 
color due to age, a bird may throughout its life change 
costumes with the seasons. Thus, the male Bobolink 
after the nesting season, exchanges his black, white, and 
buff nuptial suit for a sparrowlike dress resembling that 
of his mate. The Scarlet Tanager sheds his gay body 
plumage and puts on the olive-green colors of the fe- 
male, without changing, however, the color of his black 
wings and tail. The following spring both birds resume 
the more conspicuous coats. A more or less similar 
change takes place among many birds in which the male 
is brighter than the female, but, among land birds, when 
the adults of both sexes are alike, there is little or no 
seasonal change in color. 
The Molt.*—These changes in plumage, as far as they 
are understood, are accomplished by the molt, frequently 
followed by a wearing off of the differently colored ter- 
minal fringe which is found on the new feathers of some 
birds. It has been stated that birds change color without 
changing their plumage, either by a chemical alteration 
in the vigment of the feathers resulting in a new color, 
or by the actual gain of new pigment from the body ; but 
I know of no instance in which this has been proved, nor 
do I believe that the latter change is possible. The whole 
subject offers an excellent field for observation and ex- 
periment. 
There is a great and as yet but little understood 
variation in the molting of birds. Not only may closely 
* See Stone, The Molting of Birds, with Special Reference to-the 
Plumages of the Smaller Land Birds of Eastern North America, Pro- 
ceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science, 1896, pp 
108-167, two plates. 
