VARIATION IN COLOUR. 
109 
“ Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.” 
Romeo and Juliet , Act iii. Sc. 2. 
We have seen a variety of the jackdaw of a dirty 
yellowish-white colour ; it could scarcely be called “ amber- 
colour’d.” No doubt other members of the genus Corvus 
have occasionally been observed to vary quite as much in 
their plumage. Shakespeare says,— 
“ An amber-colour’d raven was well noted.” 
Love s Labour s Lost f Act iv. Sc. 3. 
No doubt it was ; quite as much as a white blackbird. 
This apparent contradiction of terms is in reality no myth. 
We have seen three or four albino varieties of the black¬ 
bird, and could give a tolerably long list of dark-plumaged 
birds of which pure white, or almost pure white, varieties 
have been found. This may be the result of disease, or 
of old age, drying up the animal secretions, and causing 
the absence of colour which we call white. According to 
ancient authors, ravens were formerly white, but were 
changed to black for babbling. The great age to which the 
raven sometimes attains has been alluded to in the first 
chapter, where some reference is made to “ancient” eagles, 
and tame ravens have been known to outlive several 
masters who owned them successively. But birds, like all 
things else, succumb to time. Shakespeare tells us,— 
