KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 52. N:o |7. 21 
Here it may also be mentioned, that, even if in many cases it may have been 
proved that if the individual of the species which has obtained a newly-moulted 
plumage during the summer previous to the others, the latter have already been 
breeding during the same season, yet at least a noticeable case is presented, where 
Pteropodocys maxima pallida was shot close by its nest with three eggs, while the 
bird was in the deepest stage of moulting. It was a young bird, on the point of 
getting the plumage of the adult. 
Some deviations from these rules occur. They are to be found among the 
respective species as they have been arisen from the investigations. These are often 
exactly described in order to indicate the months, during which the species was met 
with, and how it acted then, and to show in which cases a continued investigation 
is desirable in order to ascertain whether one or two moulting times occur. 
Regarding the wing- and tail-feathers their falling varies in widely different 
kinds of birds. The general rule is that they are cast after the rest of the plumage 
has been renewed. They are not seldom cast long after the breeding time, in May 
or later. Corresponding pairs of feathers are cast in each wing (except Anseriformes) 
generally also at the same time, one or two tail-feathers on each side of the middle 
line of the tail. A partial moulting of certain parts of the small feathers of the 
plumage is, however, also met with at irregular times. 
The changes of colour in the young birds plumage during its transition to that 
of the adult birds take place in two fundamentally different ways: 1) either by total 
colouring of the feather, when it already in its horny sheath (as »pin») has the 
character of the older plumage, or 2) by partial colouring of the vane, when the 
sheath (pin) also exhibits the tendency. In the latter case the young bird at first 
gets a mixed plumage before the fully developed one is obtained by a new moulting. 
The illustrative instances of that are on the one side Malurus melanocephalus cruen- 
(atus, on the other hand Lalage tricolor indistincta aud Epthianura tricolor assimilis 
1see plate 1, fig. 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d and fig. 5 and 6), in which species the different 
appearance of the feathers is also described in more detail. 
But the question about the way in which the changes of colour take place 
ineludes also that of the plumages of the adult birds. In this case it is the sexual 
characteristics which have been developed in the plumage compared with that of the 
young bird, and the changes, that take place in the former during different seasons 
(of the year), which are of the greatest interest. 
As an example of a method of procedure in this which has not been mentioned 
before, the colour change arising through so-called border moulting we shall adduce 
the species Halcyon sanctus. (See this species!) 
If we examine the white band on the hind neck of an adult bird, we shall 
find, that in a specimen, which has been lately moulting, the white is, as it were, 
of secondary origin. At the lower part of the band we shall find feathers with blue 
edges followed by a fainter dark edge. The blue margin may be partly lost and 
partly remain in the same feather. Where it is lost there is a faint darkbrown 
edge left, or else this edge is also lost, and the feather is entirely white. In an old 
