470 
Mr. J. Lewis Bonhote on Moult 
some do moult their body-feathers in spring, I am equally 
certain, from those I have had under observation, that 
they do not all do so. The only attempt to account for 
feathers being found in all stages of colour between the two 
extremes (for Dr. Allen evidently acknowledges that such 
feathers are found) is in the following paragraph :— 
“ If one will take a good series of specimens in moult 
(unfortunately specimens are rare) in the case of species 
which are alleged to, and which have the appearance of 
changing colour without moulting, it va ill be found that the 
parti-coloured and apparently changing feathers have this 
appearance when they first break from the sheath in which 
they are formed, and that these deceptive feathers have not 
necessarily acquired their peculiar appearance by a subse¬ 
quent and quite inconceivable change in the amount, arrange¬ 
ment, and character of the colouring matter.” 
This form of change, however, which is, I grant, found in 
one or two species of birds, and of which the Corncrake 
offers an analogous but not quite similar example, is in 
reality a pure colour-change, although it is apparently so 
hurried on as to occur concurrently with the moult. The 
best example is that of the Great Northern Diver, in which 
the feathers, when first assumed, are of a bluish grey, and 
in which the bird begins to assume the breeding-dress 
before these are fully formed. That is the normal form of 
moult ; but it frequently happens, especially among younger 
birds, that this colour-change is deferred till a month or 
more after the feathers are fully grown, but then takes 
place exactly as when the follicle of the feather was in active 
communication with the body; therefore it is obviously not 
necessary for the change that the feathers should still have 
living connection with the body. 
The other paper, by Mr. Stone, is one well worth reading 
by those interested in moult and colour-change; but although 
Mr. Stone's paper is complete to a certain point, his studies 
have been chiefly, if not entirely, confined to the smaller 
birds of the North-American continent, and to those Orders 
in which the colour-change is most conspicuous, such as the 
