A RAPID MELANISTIC AND SUBSEQUENT PARTIAL 
ALBINISTIC CHANGE IN A CAGED ROBIN/^' 
Bv He:nry L. Ward. 
Early in November last I was told of a caged robin in the city 
that had suddenly turned black. On Nov. 6t]i I went to see this 
bird, which belongs to Mrs. T. J. Coughlin, and found a lively, 
pugnacious and apparently healthy robin with jet black plumage 
except for what appeared to be two small, white under-tail cov- 
erts. When viewed under strong illumination, and at a certain 
angle, the feathers of the breast were bordered with brownish black 
rather than being unicolor as otherwise they appeared. The eye- 
ring was not noticeable, the bill was nearly black and the anterior 
surfaces of the tarsi and upper surfaces of the toes were heavily 
suffused with black while their plantar surfaces were whitish flesh 
color. The tarsi are rather deeper, antero-posteriorly, than is nor- 
mal, apparently due to excessive development of the scutes. 
Its history as given me was that about four years previously 
it had been taken as an abandoned nestling by Mrs. Panton, a 
friend of Mrs. Coughlin, who had kept it in a cage in her kitchen. 
Thirteen months ago this friend died and the bird was transferred 
to Mrs. Coughlin's kitchen. For about the first three years of its 
life during its sojourn with Mrs. Panton the kitchen in which it 
was kept was used for cooking and washing. In Mrs. Coughlin's 
kitchen no washing and little cooking is done. The bird is in 
a large wire cage suspended by a pulley from the ceiling im- 
mediately in front of a south window. The room is perhaps eight 
* Read before the joint meeting- of the Wis. Acad, of Sciences, Arts 
and Letters and the Wis. Xatural History Society Feb. 13, 1908. 
43 
