GAY PLUMES AND DULL 



lidce the same tendency may be noticed, the flocking 

 crossbills, pine grosbeaks, redpolls, and the like, 

 all being brighter of color than the solitary spar- 

 rows. The robin is the most social of our thrushes, 

 and is the brightest-colored. 



In the tropics the parrots and parrakeets and 

 macaws are all strikingly colored, and are all very 

 social. Why should not this be so ? Numbers beget 

 warmth and enthusiasm. A multitude is gay of 

 spirit. It is always more noisy and hilarious, more 

 festive and playful, than are single individuals. 

 Each member is less a part of its surroundings and 

 more a part of the flock or the herd. Its associations 

 with nature are less intimate than with its own kind. 

 Sociability, in the human species, tends to express 

 itself in outward symbols and decorations, and why 

 may not the brighter colors of the social birds be 

 the outward expression of the same spirit ? 



The social flamingo does not, in the matter of 

 color, seem to have been influenced by its environ- 

 ment at all. The gregarious instinct is evidently 

 very strong in the species. Mr. Frank M. Chapman 

 found them in the Bahamas living and breeding 

 in great colonies; he discovered what he calls a 

 flamingo city. The birds all moved and acted in 

 concert. Their numbers showed in the distance like 

 an army of redcoats; they made the land pink. They 

 were adapted to their marsh life by their long legs, 

 and to the food they ate by their bills, but their 

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