ORDER PASSERES. SOJ 



gay and familiar, and they are easily satisfied as to food. By 

 being kept sufficiently warm, they might be brought to 

 hatch in these countries. 



Levaillant observes, that this species, and also the serena^ 

 in a certain season, furnish a conductor to the little troops of 

 Senegalis and Bengalis. This conductor remains on a bush 

 while the flocks are seeking their food on the ground, and 

 when it flies away, they all follow ; they also form flocks of 

 their own species. 



Levaillant tells us, that the female of longicauda enjoys a 

 privilege which Nature has refused to the females of the other 

 species, although, at a certain age, she has invested them with 

 the colours of the male ; this is the having of the long-tail fea- 

 thers which, though always short before, after these females 

 have lost the faculty of reproduction, becomes considerably 

 lengthened, and assumes a vertical instead of a horizontal direc- 

 tion. He does not inform us, however, whether the feathers 

 augment in number or not. Another attribute of this female, 

 according to this writer, is to wear at all times, after the 

 prescribed age, the uniform which is peculiar to the male 

 during the season of reproduction only. From this it follows, 

 that the individuals met with in this splendid livery, during 

 the six months in which the male is in his winter costume, 

 are certainly old females disguised in the male habit ; while 

 the males, on the contrary, are in the dress of the females. 

 This is not the only peculiarity remarkable in this species ; it 

 also diffiers from all the rest of its order by being polygamous. 

 Mr. Barrow tells us, that these handsome birds live in a sort 

 of republic, where two males suffice for at least thirty females. 

 This fact is confirmed by M. Levaillant, who assures us that 

 they live in societies, and construct nests very near each 

 other. A society is composed of about four-and-twenty 

 females, and either from some law of nature, or some other 



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