io8 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



begin to have their wings well fledged in from a few days to a few 

 weeks. In birds that nest in trees or holes, or high above the 

 ground, the flight feathers usually lag behind the others. The time, 

 however, is closely fitted to the habits of each species and has no 

 general relation to the kind of bird or to the size of the bird. A 

 young Californian condor, one of the largest of living birds and 

 which weighed nearly a pound when it was newly hatched, was at 

 first clad in a scanty white down, but had the head naked. A month 

 later it was as large as a hen, and covered with a greyish down, and it 

 was not until it was over two and a half months old that the first 

 trace of true feathers appeared on its tail. When it was three and a 

 half months old, and weighed fifteen pounds, it was still more than 

 half covered with down. Some of the small singing birds, which are 

 naked when they are hatched, may be fuUy fledged in two or three 

 weeks. 



The acquisition of a coating of true feathers, however, by no, 

 means implies that the young bird has acquired the pattern and' 

 colour of the adult. A number of successive moults, occupying one 

 or more years, may have to be gone through before the young bird 

 assumes its final garb. The facts are bewildering in their com- 

 plexity and some of them are extremely difficult to place in an 

 orderly picture. The general rule, to which the exceptions are ex- 

 tremely rare, is that the early plumages of young birds are duller 

 in colour than the dullest of the adult garbs of their kind ; that they 

 resemble the young plumages of allied birds more closely than the 

 various adult plumages of such birds resemble each other ; that in 

 colour they are extremely often brown, whatever be the colour of the 

 adult plumages ; and that in pattern they show such simple growth 

 patterns as stripes, spots, bars and mottlings much more frequently 

 than the adults. 



The most familiar case of differences between young and adult] 

 plumages is that when the sexes differ, the young are like the plainer 

 of the two adults. Every one knows examples of this. In pheasants 

 (see Plate IV, p. 69) and fowls the cocks are amongst the most resplen- 

 dent of living creatures. Their heads are decorated with wattles, 

 combs, coloured patches and crests. Their plumage shmes with all the 

 colours of the rainbow, with green and gold, purple and crimson, and 

 red and yellow, arranged in the most fantastic of patterns. The 

 cocks of different species are extremely unlike. The hens are 

 clothed in subdued patterns, simple stripes and mottlings, coloured 

 in various shades of brown, with at the most pale reflections of thel 



