THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 69 



stones, which harmonize nearly with his own hue. 

 After nauch awkward scrambling, I capture the 

 nervous little fellow, and pause to note carefully 

 his changing suit. The wings and tail have be- 

 come quite black, yet on some of the feathers there 

 remains the brownish tint which characterizes his 

 winter dress. The black patch, absent in the cold 

 season, is beginning to appear on his crown ; the 

 tips of the yellow feathers about this region are 

 washed with some dark coloring matter, showing 

 that the designer marked in outline the general 

 pattern before completing the work. The yellow- 

 ish-gray and ashy-brown plumage of the rest of the 

 body is fast ripening into lemon. Not only are 

 the feathers changing, but the bill, which is gray- 

 ish during his nomadic months, has now become 

 flesh-color, previous to its passing into buff-yellow, 

 seen in his full summer uniform. 



Here a quartette of these birds have just perched 

 on a spray of arrow-wood, as if it had suddenly 

 burst into yellow blossoms, and give me a song. 

 Possibly they may not have practiced together a 

 long time, for they seemed out of tune, and I could 

 not understand the words ; yet they have remark- 

 ably good voices, that much resemble the canary, 

 to which they are closely connected. With what 



