202 
RICE BUNTING. 
to those who, like myself, have kept them in cages, and 
witnessed their gradual change of colour.* That accurate 
observer, Mr William Bartram, appears, from the following 
extract, to have taken notice of, or at least suspected, this 
change of colour in these birds, more than forty years ago. 
44 Being in Charleston,” says he, 44 in the month of June, I 
observed a cage full of Rice Birds, that is, of the yellow, or 
female colour, who were very merry and vociferous, having 
the same variable music with the pied, or male bird, which I 
thought extraordinary, and, observing it to the gentleman, he 
assured me that they were all of the male kind, taken the 
preceding spring ; but had changed their colour, and would 
be next spring of the colour of the pied, thus changing colour 
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.” Without, however, implicating the veracity of 
Catesbv, 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 dissection 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 discovered ; 
though in spring their magnitude in each is at least one 
hundred 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 opinion I long entertained myself, till 
* The beautiful plumage of the male represented on the plate, is that 
during the breeding season, and is lost as soon as the duties incumbent thereon 
are completed. In this \ye have a striking analogy with some nearly allied 
African Fringillidce. 
The genus Dolyconyx has been made by Mr Swainson to contain this curious 
and interesting form : by that gentleman it is placed in the aberrant families of 
the Sturnidce. — Ed. 
