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Mr. R. Phillipps,



“rippling” effect on the early nuptial cap and coat, given by

light tips on both the new blue and the new chestnut feathers,

disappear by June, leaving the colours deep, dead, and lustreless.

And a curious indefinable “glamour” or haze of white («o/down)

which overhangs or clings to the plumage of my eldest fledgeling

when on a high perch in a good light , causing its mother to look

black by comparison, must I think be caused by very light tips

to the feathers (see below) ; probably it is this 1 something ’ that

causes them both (the other is more secretive and keeps much in

the shade) to look so dingy, and that it will not last, for the

Catalogue tells us that the “ Young in first plumage resemble

birds of the year, wdtli the spots somewhat exaggerated,” which at

present does not fit my youngsters, so presumably abrasion here

also steps in and plays its part.


Nevertheless all this does not alter the simple fact that “ The

breeding colours are assumed by a change of the feathers of the body,'’

as was first stated by Mr. St. Quintin, and as I have myself

observed on many succeeding winters.


The female is a neat, trim, brownish bird, mottled below,

some chestnut about the flanks and tail-coverts, the tail, with its

characteristic wagging up and down, chestnut, of a slightly lighter

shade than the male’s, with the two centre feathers brown, and

the bill brown. As Mr. St. Quintin has also observed, the female

likewise has a winter-spring moult of the small feathers or of

most of them. With me, the moult of the female has commenced

later than that of the male, sometimes not even till March ; the

moult of the breast feathers can always be observed and followed.


Both male and female have a full moult in the autumn.


The fledgeling, on leaving the nest, as it squatted on its

latter end in a shady corner and looked up at one like a gaping,

wide-mouth, anything but a waddling, frog, appeared to be a

very dingy little fellow, and was scarcely distinguishable from

its surroundings. The underparts were and are obscurely

mottled, the flight feathers broadly but dimly edged with sandy

buff, and some rufous appeared round and about the tiny tail,

which was wagged correctly and with discrimination on its first

hopping without any preliminary Council schooling. In a day

or so it sat on dry clods of earth, which it closely resembled,





