18 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 
green hue which the bird had when it left the nest. The 
third spring brings him nearer towards perfection, as at that 
time the deep chesnut color has taken possession of the lower 
parts, the black has deepened on the upper parts, and over the 
whole head, as well as on the wings and tail-feathers. Yet 
the garb with which it is ultimately to be covered requires 
another return of spring before it is completed, after which 
it remains as exhibited in the adult male represented in the 
plate. 
" These extraordinary changes are quite suf&cient of them- 
selves to lead naturalists abroad into error, as they give rise 
to singular arguments even with some persons in America, 
who maintain that the differences of color are indicative of 
different species. But, since the habits of these birds under 
all these singular changes of plumage, are ascertained to be 
precisely the same, the argument no longer holds good." 
Of whatever impositions upon "the sex," "the Parson" 
may have been guilty, during the years of his various dis- 
guises, we profess to be innocently ignorant, and are " happy 
in our ignorance." 
But of one thing we are soberly assured : that Mr. Audu 
bon is the first of Naturalists^ (not Ornithologist, simply,) 
who has eliminated this distinction of age, sex and color, 
with their corresponding transitions, into anything bordering 
upon scientific accuracy. He first thoroughly roused science 
to the fact that it had often recognized male as female, young 
as old, and proved that many of its genera and species might 
come from the same nest or lair ! 
Ko classification can be called scientific, or recognized as 
worth anything, in which this point has not been most care- 
fully guarded ; and it involves difficulties^ which, in some 
instances, the untiring zeal and watchfulness of his long life 
has been insufficient to solve. 
What a singular ordination these alterations of plumage 
appears ! The metamorphoses of Fashion are here clearly 
legitimatized by nature. Our Parson, with the addition of 
