RICE BUNTING 



51 



resided for years in the country they inhabit, and who, as he him- 

 self informs us, examined by dissection great numbers of them in 

 the Fall, and repeated his experiment the succeeding year, lest he 

 should have been mistaken, declares that he uniformly found them 

 to be females. These assertions must appear odd to the inhabi- 

 tants of the eastern states, to whom the change of plamage in these 

 birds is familiar, as it passes immediately under their eye ; and also 

 to those, who like myself have kept them in cages, and witnessed 

 their gradual change of color. That accurate observer, Mr. Wil- 

 liam Bartram, appears, from the following extract, to have taken 

 notice of, or at least suspected this change of color in these birds 

 more than forty years ago. " Being in Charleston," says he, " in 

 " the month of June, I observed a cage full of Rice-birds, that is 

 " of the yellow or female color, who were very merry and vocife- 

 " rous, having the same variable music with the pied or male bird, 

 " which I thought extraordinary, and observing it to the gentle- 

 " man, he assured me that they were all of the male kind, taken 

 " the preceding spring; but had changed their color, and would be 

 " next spring of the color of the pied, thus changing color with the 

 " seasons of the year. If this is really the case, it appears they 

 " are both of the same species intermixed. Spring and Fall." With- 

 out, however, implicating the veracity of Catesby, who, I have no 

 doubt, believed as he wrote, a few words will easily explain why 

 he was deceived. The internal organization of undomesticated 

 birds, of all kinds, undergoes a remarkable change, every spring 

 and summer; and those who wish to ascertain this point by dis- 

 section will do well to remember, that in this bird those parts that 

 characterize the male are, in autumn, no larger than the smallest 

 pin^s head, and in young birds of the first year can scarcely be dis- 

 covered; tho in spring their magnitude in each is at least one hun- 

 dred times greater. To an unacquaintance with this extraordinary 

 circumstance I am persuaded has been owing the mistake of Mr. 

 Catesby that the females only return in the Fall ; for the same 



