580 FRINGILLID A. 
male is red, is in her of a brownish purple red; the head, 
wings, and tail, not quite so pure a black. 
Young birds in their first feathers resemble the female, 
but are without the black head. Some time after leaving 
the nest, young males assume a brighter red colour on the 
breast and the black on the crown of the head. The bright 
tints of the adult male are not obtained till after the se- 
cond moult. 
Bullfinches appear to be liable to great changes of co- 
lour in their plumage. White of Selborne says, in one of 
his letters, “‘ A few years ago I saw in a cage a cock Bull- 
finch which had been caught in the fields after it had come 
to its full colours. In about a year it began to look dingy ; 
and, blackening every succeeding year, it became coal 
black at the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed : 
such influence has food on the colour of animals.” Morton, 
in his History of Northamptonshire, as quoted by Pennant, 
gives another instance of such a change, with this addition, 
that the year following, after moulting, the bird recovered 
its natural colours. The occurrence of varieties, partially 
or wholly white, have been recorded in the Magazine of 
Natural History, and in the Naturalist. Professor Nilsson 
of Lund, in the coloured illustrations of his Fauna of 
Scandinavia, has figured a beautifully marked variety of 
the Bullfinch, which is pure white on the back, wings, 
and tail; but the head, and all the under surface of the 
body are of a delicate rose colour. This bird is quoted as 
the Loxia flamengo of Sparrman. 
