58 On Female Regent Bird assuming Male's Plumage.


to grow ; and 011 the very next day the crown region was tinged

with the glorious yellow-orange, which in due time filled up and

occupied its allotted space. But of the feathers which bordered

the track, not so much as one had been shed ; these buff feathers

reared their heads conspicuously aloft, like the high grass on

each side of many an African path, and were only slowly and

gradually replaced by the black feathers, some of the buff remain¬

ing on the cheeks as late as September 14, and not being reported

clear until the 17th. Why should this block of tiny buff feathers

from one particular part be cast all together, to make way for a

crop of yellow ones, while all along, on each side of the track,

feathers of a like size and colour, separated from them by no

visible dividing line, held their ground well, and only slowly,

and as it were reluctantly, gave way to the on-coming growth of

black? It is something more than passing strange.


Another point must be noticed. Whereas the normal male

Regent takes not less than two annual moults to change from the

immature to the adult plumage, this nondescript creature has

jumped from the old feather to the new by one single moult.


Small blame to them, then, that the members of my house¬

hold, accustomed for years to seeing this female going about in

sober and modest apparel, 011 now beholding a gaudy damsel

flouncing and bouncing about, should mutter such words as “ un¬

natural,” “weird,” “uncanny,” “false,” “brazen faced hussy,”

and the like. It is a Jackdaw in Peacock’s feathers, a wolf in

sheep’s clothing. It is not a male, nor a female, but a “ thing” ;

it is not a he, nor a she, but an “it” ; it is neither fish, flesh,

fowl, nor good red herring. Alas, my masters, what is to be

done with this abnormal monstrosity !


Reginald Philupps.


N.B.—As I see this bird, day after day, flying about to all

appearances a true male, it is natural to ask—Can any mistake

have been made? The only possible one that I can suggest is

that the bird who died last February was the second female, and

that it is the young aviary-bred male who survives. When the

shadow of death falls on a bird, it is a very different creature

from what the same bird was when full of life and vigour— hit

the survivor seemed to be certainly the well-k?ioivn female. More-



