no CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



individual feathers being margined with yellow- gold or vivid white. 

 The male is a pale image of his mate. In the eclipse plumage the 

 sexes are much alike and very like the eclipse plumage of the allied 

 red-necked phalarope. The ground colour is a greyish- white, whilst 

 the upper parts are less glossy and paler, with the bright margins of 

 the feathers very inconspicuous. The young birds are paler than 

 the males, and more closely resemble the eclipse plumage. 



The best-known instances of the changes to " eclipse " plumage 

 are found in the ducks, game birds, waders, herons, some of the 

 tanagers and the weaver-birds. The little weaver-birds show 

 almost every degree of likeness between the sexes ; in some cases 

 the males are very brightly coloured and the females dull, in others 

 the colouring of the two is nearly alike. They pass into a dull 

 eclipse and remain in that condition for nearly six months, and then 

 assume the breeding colours again. The young birds are always 

 more like the hens and the eclipse stages, the brilliant blacks, 

 scarlets and purples being absent and replaced by mottled brown. 



When both sexes are alike, the young in their first true plumage 

 are usually unlike the adults and are much duUer and browner. 

 Examples of this occur in almost every group of birds. Sometimes 

 the change from immature to adult plumage occurs at a single moult ; 

 sometimes gradually over two or three years as in the gulls (see 

 Plate VIII, p. 162), the feathers changing by almost imperceptible 

 stages ; sometimes, as in birds-of-prey, it takes a number of years, 

 mottled and striped plumages being replaced by feathers with trans- 

 verse bars, then by self-coloured feathers, and the general shade of 

 the whole plumage getting darker. In the king penguin the brownish 

 down is replaced by the first immature plumage, when the birds are 

 nearly a year old. The crown of the head has a pale grey centre, the 

 neck patch is light lemon- yellow instead of the bright golden-yellow 

 of the adult, and there is less distinction between the back and the 

 ventral surface, the general coloration being a pale brownish- grey, 

 lighter on the under surface and darker on the back. Many sea- 

 birds are vividly patterned when adult, the under side being usually 

 quite white, the upper surface black, or a shade of pearly-grey with 

 black markings, or the whole bird, as in the case of the gannet, may 

 be white except for the black tips of the wings. The young in their 

 first plumage are nearly uniformly covered with shades of mottled 

 brown. So also ibises and storks, which when adult are white, or 

 brilliantly marked out with white, brown and black, wear a juvenile 

 garb of mottled and spotted brown. The down of young pelicans is 



