194 On the Change of Plumage in the Common Crossbill. 



exactly at what age these dresses are assumed, I fancy we can 

 form a tolerably good idea ; and I will now proceed to state 

 below, clearly and concisely, the four different stages of 

 plumage which the male crossbill undergoes from birth to very 

 old age. I have paid careful attention to this subject, and I 

 write this with more than fifty packed skins lying before me, 

 all shot here between the 1st of November and the 1st of April, 

 in every stage of plumage, intermediate as well as determined. 

 We will now shortly describe them. 



The first dress after just leaving the nest, up to the first 

 autumnal moult, has been correctly described as greenish 

 brown, with dark longitudinal streaks down each feather. In 

 this plumage there is very little difference between the male 

 and female. In the nest plumage the beaks are straight, but 

 the mandibles soon begin to cross after leaving the nest ; and 

 in the young birds of the year, killed early in November, the 

 beak is nearly as much crooked as in the older ones. Some- 

 times the point of the under mandible crosses to the right, but 

 oftener to the left. 



As soon as the autumnal moult is completed, the females 

 are easily distinguished from the males. The young feathers 

 (striped) are very apparent in both, but all the under parts are 

 tinged in the young males with yellow orange ; in the females 

 with bright yellow. The heads and rumps of the males are 

 orange ; in the females, the same parts are only slightly tinged 

 with yellow. 



In not one single young male, shot during the autumn or 

 winter, have I seen the slightest indication to lead me to sup- 

 pose that he would become red before the next autumnal 

 moult, if then. It seems, however, very probable that this 

 orange colour gradually becomes redder without a regular 

 moult ; but so much do the shades vary that we scarcely see 

 two birds exactly alike. It would be difficult to say how long 

 this plumage lasts, but I am inclined to think for at least one 

 year, perhaps even for two, for early in November, long after 

 the moulting was over, I have killed males of a beautiful 

 orange male colour, which, from their eye and general appear- 

 ance, could not have been birds of the year — at least there 

 was a marked difference between them and young males 

 which we knew to be birds of the year, killed at the same time, 

 for in these latter half the plumage at least was composed of 

 the dark-spotted young feathers. Still these larger finer- 

 coloured birds might have been early birds born in the previous 

 spring, although I think not. But that they breed in both 

 these dresses I satisfactorily proved in the spring of 1803, 

 when I took many nests, from which I shot orange males, 

 and two of them I was certain were birds born in 1862, be- 



