Birds. 3969 



Observations on the General Colour and the occasional Variations 

 in the Plumage of Birds. By the Rev. Alfred Charles 

 Smith, M.A. 



My attention having been directed last year to the remarkable 

 change in the colour of the plumage of a blackbird, as detailed by me 

 (Zool. 3576), and commented on in a subsequent number (Id. 3665) ; 

 I have pursued my inquiries on the subject a little further, with regard 

 to the general colour of the plumage of birds, and the varieties so of- 

 ten met with. The subject is one of exceeding interest ; and though 

 I cannot pretend to have elicited any new facts, or to have made any 

 new discoveries, I will submit my observations (such as they are) to 

 the readers of the ' Zoologist,' together with a list of such varieties as 

 I have been able to ascertain ; hoping that the former may induce 

 some one to work out and more thoroughly investigate this subject, 

 and that the latter may be serviceable to him in so doing. 



In my former paper, above referred to, I had occasion to describe 

 the growth of a feather, as detailed by Malpighi and other anatomists, 

 and I then looked forward to this season of the year, when 1 might 

 have excellent opportunities for more closely watching, than I had 

 hitherto done, the gradual but very rapid development of feathers in 

 the nestlings which now abound in our shrubberies and gardens. 

 The nests to which I have chiefly confined my attention are those of 

 the blackbirds and thrushes, both on account of their abundance and 

 easiness of access, and especially on account of the superior size of 

 their young inmates ; and I have been extremely interested in watch- 

 ing the nestlings from the first hour of hatching to the time of quit- 

 ting the nest. To those unaccustomed to note these things, it is quite 

 astonishing what a rapid increase the feathers make in a single day, 

 and how very short a time elapses from the moment when the chick 

 emerges from the egg, a blind, naked, shapeless creature, to the first 

 covering of down, and the development of that down to the perfect 

 feather, and the increase of that feather until the young bird is fully 

 fledged, and able to shuffle off from the nest and hurry into the thick- 

 est cover, when the intruder rudely comes to pry into and examine 

 his new clothing. But now the young bird, whose wings have already 

 enabled him to flutter away out of our sight, though well covered with 

 feathers, has by no means come to his full plumage, nor rivals his fa- 

 ther's colours : some birds there are, indeed, so precocious, that very 

 soon it would be difficult to distinguish them from their parents ; but 

 XI. 2 K 



