8 Bird - Lore 



good authorities said they could not have black throats, that it must be some- 

 thing on the feathers collected in feeding, or else they were not Audubons. 

 These two birds traveled together much of the time, and the other one had 

 signs of black on its face or throat. Moreover, where the yellow should have 

 been on the sides of the black-throated one, there was no black, but the usual 

 gray, which showed that the absence of yellow there was not due to anything 

 on the feathers, but simply to a lack of yellow. Among all the birds for miles 

 around, there seemed to be the two kinds, either with yellow in the normal pro- 

 portions or else black, as described, with no birds showing any intermediate 

 shades. Many students noticed the same thing, and I often watched this one 

 with a glass at a distance of eight feet, in the same place where it was photo- 

 graphed. Later in the season yellow began to show, and in time it turned into 

 a conventional Audubon Warbler. 



In one of the best bird-books it is stated that the young female has less 

 yellow and is darker, so I decided that these black-throated ones had gone a 

 little farther, left out the yellow, and added more black, in spite of what some 

 good authorities say. 



A MOCKINGBIRD ON HIS MUSIC STAND 



