Variation in the Plumage of Birds. 167 



dainty, although several sorts of diet were offered to it ; and, 

 finally, to reject any kind of food. Fir seeds, apple pips, &c, 

 were offered; but all to no purpose. It began to assume a thin 

 and withered appearance, and, with fits of dizziness and great 

 weakness, lingered on for about a week, when it tumbled off 

 its perch, and yielded up its life. When taken, its crossed 

 beak was moderately worn, but during its residence in the 

 cage grew exceedingly pointed ; and, from being relieved from 

 toil, the upper mandible especially became of an awkward 

 length. Such is the beautiful provision of Nature, who, as 

 she has designed this bird to a laborious life, has assimilated 

 the re-creative power in the growth of its beak, to meet the 

 constant wear from its incessant and unremitting employment. 

 — Joseph Clarke. Saffron Walden, Jan. 28. 1837. 



[As the author of the above notice did not request us to 

 suppress his name, we have appended it in place of his ini- 

 tials, considering it very desirable that communications treat- 

 ing upon matters of fact should, as a genei'al rule, have the 

 names of the respective contributors attached to them. — Ed.~\ 



Variation in the Plumage of Birds. — I notice your corre- 

 spondent, F. T. Ellis, mentions, at p. 54. of your last Number, 

 the circumstance of the coachman of the Buckingham stage 

 reporting that he had frequently seen pied rooks about the 

 village of Chalfont St. Peter. In corroboration, I beg to 

 say that a family of rooks have, for many years, inhabited 

 that district, which in every year have several of their brood 

 party-coloured, black and white. This variegation of the 

 plumage, however, disappears with the first moult; but among 

 the next young families there are always a few pied ones. 

 Some with white wings, and with head, body, and tail black ; 

 others with only a few of the quill feathers on one or both 

 wings white. 



This family of pied rooks were first noticed in 1798, and 

 some of their descendants have continued to show this pecu- 

 liarity of colour ever since. About the above date a pure 

 'white house martin was bred at some house in the same 

 neighbourhood, and might be daily seen feeding with its con- 

 geners over the river, and with them nightly roosting in the 

 willow trees overhanging the water, till they took their de- 

 parture about the middle of October. 



There are other birds which occasionally change colour : 

 blackbirds have been seen in an entirely white dress; and 

 house-sparrows are frequently seen in a magpie habit. 

 Whether the variegation continues on the three last men- 

 mentioned birds after the first moult is uncertain ; but such is 

 certainly the case with pied rooks, 



