44 BnJlcfin Wisconsin Natural History Society. [Vol. 6, Nos. 1 — 2. 
feet in height and the bird, when I have seen it, has been about five 
and a half feet above the floor. 
Up to the latter part of last September the bird had exhibited 
rather bright normal coloration when it began to moult. This 
process, which resulted in the extreme melanistic phase in which 
I first saw it, occupied about three weeks and had been completed 
some two weeks before my visit. I was assured that the bird had 
been in uniformly good health and that its diet of ground hemp, 
grated carrot and cornmeal with an occasional piece of apple to 
pick at, a minute amount of scraped raw meat, perhaps once a 
week, and in spring occasional meals of angle worms has been 
maintained during its entire life. 
On January 28th last, I again saw the robin. The pigmentation 
of the bill had almost entirely disappeared and it was bright yellow 
except for a dusky spot near the tip of the culmen. Mrs. Cough- 
lin informed me that this change had occurred within the pre- 
ceding four days. The eyelids were much lighter than at my prev- 
ious visit, appearing whitish at a distance and greenish yellow on 
close inspection. The tarsi and feet were also lighter in color, the 
pigmentation of their anterior surfaces seeming to have concreted 
so as to produce a faintly maculated effect. 
About a week previously, after having bathed and while its 
feathers were erected, it was for the first time' noticed that there 
were various white feathers underlying its sable plumage. I 
could detect these on various parts of its body and neck and a faint 
suggestion of fine, white streaking was noticeable when looking 
directly at the breast of the bird, probably due to underlying white. 
A third inspection on the loth inst., showed a farther fading of 
the dusky spot on the culmen, and apparently an addition of one or 
more white feathers to the original two white under-tail coverts. 
Whether or not the white underlying feathers on other parts of 
its body had increased was difficult of determination. As the bird 
