296 Wonders of the Bird World 



the father and mother are alike, the young birds are not very 

 dissimilar from both the parents, or else they are quite unlike 

 the latter. Examples are to be seen in many of our 

 familiar species, such as the Crows, Jackdaws and Magpies, 

 where there is but little difference between the plumages of 

 the old and young birds. In our Song-Thrush, where the 

 sexes are alike in plumage, the young birds are spotted, 

 but are otherwise not very different from their parents, and 

 in many other birds like the Finches, where the male and 

 female are often different in colour, the young are spotted, 

 and do not have a plumage like that of either the father 

 or mother. In the Nightingale and the Robin, where both 

 parents are coloured alike, the young are quite different 

 and are profusely spotted, and so it is with the Common 

 Fly-catcher ; but the Redstart has the same kind of spotted 

 nestling, though there is a great difference between the 

 colour of the male and female, and the latter is much the 

 plainer of the two. In these cases we find the character of 

 a spotted youngster to be an essential one, for it runs 

 throughout the whole family of Turdidce or Thrushes, and 

 is the first point we look for to find out whether a bird 

 is a Thrush or a Warbler. After the first moult, there is 

 scarcely any difference in the colour of the young and 

 old birds. 



It is seldom that the young are more highly coloured 

 than the adults, but in the Great Spotted Woodpecker 

 (Dendrocopus major) the young birds, both male and 

 female, have the whole of the crown crimson, whereas, 

 after they have moulted into adult plumage, the head of 

 the female is black, while the male has also a black head, 

 with only a patch of crimson on the nape. 



The young birds of our Long-tailed Tit {sEgithalus 

 vagans) and those of the Fan-tail Warblers (Cisticold) have 

 longer tails than their parents, and appear to be larger than 

 the latter. 



