On the Change of Plumage in the Oommon Crossbill. 195 



cause so much of the dark streaked young plumage was re- 

 maining. 



The plumage of the two birds which gave such unmistake- 

 able proofs of being birds of the previous year, was greenish 

 yellow-brown, tinged with orange on the rump and head, 

 without the slightest approach to red. The other four, evi- 

 dently older birds, were orange red ; in two of them the colours 

 very bright, and one was fast approaching to the deep red 

 plumage ; but still there is a marked difference between the 

 reddest of these orange birds and the lightest coloured of 

 twenty-five pure red birds which now lie before me. It is 

 moreover, to my eye, very easy to trace the gradual change 

 from the light orange yellow — which seems to be the first 

 colour that mixes with the young plumage — to dark orange, 

 and then deep red of the maturer bird. It is, I think, most 

 probable that these fine orange birds were males in their third 

 year, which would have become red had they lived to the next 

 autumn. However this may be, I am pretty certain that any- 

 one who saw my series of birds lying in a row, would agree 

 with me that both these yellow and orange dresses are inter- 

 mediate between the first plumage and the red dress ; and in 

 all the red birds there is little difference in the shading, except 

 that in some the rumps are brighter than in the others ; and 

 in one or two a few green feathers may be seen shooting out 

 among the red feathers on the back and head. In the summer 

 the red colour is always dullest. 



"We now come to the third dress, for I consider this orange 

 dress as nothing more than a transition from the yellow to the 

 red. This is deep . red. Brightest on the rump and head, 

 blackish on the back, lightest on the belly— certainly purer 

 and clearer in some birds than others, bat pretty much the 

 same in all ; and this I consider the true standard livery of the 

 male crossbill, but how long they wear it it is impossible to say 

 — probably for two or three years. 



Respecting the fourth, or bright yellow-green dress, which 

 the very old male crossbills occasionally assume, but which, 

 although so very rare that we scarcely see one of these bright 

 yellow-green birds in a hundred, we must still, I think, admit 

 to be normal (and this dress I fancy many naturalists have 

 confounded with the yellow and orange dress of youth); it is 

 very hard to say at what age it is assumed, but as we see so 

 few of them, it is reasonable to suppose that it must be at a 

 very advanced period of life, in a state of nature, although it 

 would appear that so soon as either the crossbill or the pine 

 grosbeak is confined in a cage, they change from red to this 

 bright yellow livery, which they wear till they die. And I 

 have seen an old male grosbeak, which was bright red when 



