282 
TANAGRA JESTIVA. 
of broken stalks of dry flax, and lined with fine grass ; 
the female lays three light blue eggs ; the young 
are produced about the middle of June; and I suspect 
that the same pair raise no more than one brood in a 
season, for I have never found their nests but in 
May or June. Towards the middle of August, they 
take their departure for the south, their residence here 
being scarcely four months. The young are, at first, of 
a green olive above, nearfy the same colour as the 
female below, and do not acquire their full tints till 
the succeeding spring or summer. 
The change, however, commences the first season 
before their departure. In the month of August, the 
young males are distinguished from the females by 
their motley garb ; the yellow plumage below, as well 
as the olive green above, first becoming stained with 
spots of a buff colour, which gradually brighten into 
red ; these being irregularly scattered over the whole 
body, except the wings and tail, particularly the former, 
which I have often found to contain four or five green 
quills in the succeeding June. The first of these birds 
I ever shot was green winged ; and conceiving it at that 
time to be a nondescript, I made a drawing of. it with 
care ; and on turning to it at this moment, I find the 
whole of the primaries, and two of the secondaries, 
yellowish green, the rest of the plumage a full red. 
This was about the middle of May. In the month of 
August, of the same year, being in the woods with my 
gun, I perceived a bird of very singular plumage, and 
having never before met with such an oddity, instantly 
gave chase to it. It appeared to me, at a small distance, 
to be sprinkled all over with red, green, and yellow. 
After a great deal of difficulty, for the bird had taken 
notice of my eagerness, and had become extremely shy, 
I succeeded in bringing it down ; and found it to be 
a young bird of the same species with the one I had 
killed in the preceding May, but less advanced to its 
fixed colours ; the wings entirely of a greenish yellow, 
and the rest of the plumage spotted, in the most irregular 
manner, with red, yellow, brown, and greenish. Having, 
