74 



NATURAL HISTORY 



and was surprised to find that their bills, 

 legs, feet, and claws were milk-white. 



A shepherd saw, as he thought, some 

 white larks on a down above my house this 

 Winter : were not these the emheriza nivalis, 

 the snow-flake of the Brit, ZooL ? No 

 doubt they were. 



A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch 

 in a cage, which had been caught in the 

 fields after it was come to its full colours. 

 In about a year it began to look dingy ; 

 and, blackening every succeeding year, it 

 became coal-black at the end of four. Its 

 chief food was hempseed. Such influence 

 has food on the colour of animals 1 The 

 pied and mottled colours of domesticated 

 animals are supposed to be owing to high, 

 various, and unusual food. 



I had remarked, for years, that the root 

 of the cuckoo-pint ( armn J was frequently 

 scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, 

 and eaten in severe snowy weather. After 

 ^ observing, with some exactness, myself, 

 and getting others to do the same, we found 

 it was the thrush kind that searched it out. 



