326 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



among the darker body plumage, while patches 

 of blue feathers were already full-grown ; but, 

 again, not a single indication of a brown-mottled 

 feather becoming blue. It is therefore clear that, 

 if some of the mottled spring feathers should 

 change their colour to blue, a greater proportion 

 of this blue autumnal dress is obtained by a 

 regular moult. 



And now, with regard to the change from this 

 blue autumnal dress to the pure white of winter ; 

 I am now decidedly of opinion that this is also a 

 true moult — in fact, that it is the usual autumnal 

 moult peculiar to the feathered race. I certainly 

 may, however, remark that in the birds I killed in 

 August, many of the blue feathers were white 

 half-way up from the bottom, and with broad 

 white edges, as if they were gradually becoming 

 white ; so I do not wonder that the general opinion 

 should be that these blue feathers gradually whiten, 

 the transition appears so easy and natural. But 

 then, on the other hand, in some of the birds 

 killed as early as the second week in August, I 

 observed some new white feathers shooting out 

 under the blue; and, in the two specimens to 

 which I have above referred as killed in the end 

 of September and October, the white feathers were 

 apparently all new, and what blue feathers re- 

 mained were loose and ready to fall off. I did not 



