256 BEACH GRASS 



the case of the snow bunting, the junco and the 

 chewink, and is strikingly shown in the case of 

 the English sparrow, where the process goes on 

 all unnoticed at our feet. 



The ultra-concealing-colorationists say that 

 the brilliant colors serve to conceal, but one who 

 has watched eiders in the north, even though he 

 admits that the green and white and black may 

 match the iceberg and the sea and the rocks, is 

 as sure that the colors are for display and for 

 conspicuousness as he is that black is black and 

 white is white. The speed with which the male 

 discards his brilliant dress when the spring 

 madness is over seems to bear him out in this 

 opinion. 



A recent writer ^ in ''The Auk" states his opin- 

 ion, that the brilliant colors and markings of the 

 group of warblers "act as a uniform, faciliating 

 the recognition by a bird of its own kind just 

 as they facilitate its recognition by a bird stu- 

 dent." How then does he account for the fact 

 that the females and young, who need most to 

 be identified, are most obscurely marked, and 



ij. T. Nichols. Auk, 1912, XXXVI, 228. 



