244 
TRAVELS IN 
feathers of its tail, which are fifteen inches long, while the 
body is barely five, are placed in vertical pofitions like thofe of 
the domeflic cock. The bounty of nature feems to have been 
extended to this bird to its difadvantage ; its tail, when on the 
wing, impeding, inftead of afTifling, its flight. This long tail, 
however, endures but the feafon of love. In the winter it 
aiTumes the fame as that of the female, fhort, brown, and hori- 
zontal, and it can then fly like other birds. The change of 
plumage, in many birds, from that of the male to the female, 
and the contrary, has led fome fpeculative naturalifts to adopt 
an opinion that a change of fex alfo actually takes place. This, 
however, is not the cafe with refpedt to the two birds in quef- 
tion. The long-tailed finch appears to be one of thofe 
few of the feathered tribe that, in a flate of nature, are found 
to be polygamous. I have frequently feen from thirty to forty 
of their nefts together in one clump of reeds, but never more 
than two males at one place. The conftrudion of their nefts 
is very curious. Thefe are entirely compofed of green grafs 
neatly plaited into a round ball, and knotted faft between the 
ftems of two reeds. The entrance is through a tube whofe; 
orifice is on the under fide, next to the water. 
The termination of the Snowy mountains is about twelve 
miles to the north-eaftward of Compafsberg ; and here a port 
or pafs through them opens upon a plain extending to the 
northward, without a fwell, farther than the eye could com- 
mand. Eight miles beyond this pafs we encamped for the 
night, when the weather was more raw and cold than we had 
hitherto experienced on the Sneuwberg, The thick clouds 
being 
