Identifier: birdlife00pycr (find matches)
Title: Bird-life
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Pycraft, W. P. (William Plane), 1868-1942
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: London : Hodder and Stoughton
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ird of Paradise. This last has beenquite recently discovered. The long streamersfrom the head are horny in texture and likenothing else in the bird world. What these arelike can be gathered from the accompanyingpictures (fig. 1). Let us here pause to consider some generalrules which appear to govern the colouration ofthe plumage from infancy to adult life. To bebrief, when the male plumage is conspicuouslybrighter than that of the female, the young intheir first plumage after moulting the nestlingdown resemble the female. The females retainthis form permanently ; the young males after alonger or shorter period assume the characteristicmale livery. When the male and female are both alike andmore or less brilliantly coloured, the young don alivery different from both, as is the case in therobin and starling ; or the young may closelyresemble both parents and lack only somethingof their brilliancy, as happens with the king-fishers, for instance. The time which it takes for a bird to gain
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Fig 1.The King of Saxonys Bird of Paradise (upper figure).The Superb Bird of Paradise (lower figure). BIRD LIVERIES AND THEIR MEANING. 37 the aduh plumage varies from a few Weeks toabout three years or more. Tho?e of my readerswho reside in England can watch this process,through a most beautiful series of transitions,in the common starling : the whole process takesin this case but a week or two. Changes of colour in plumage may be broughtabout either by replacing old feathers by new,or by wearing away of c-rtain parts of an adultfeather. There is yet a third way, according tosome, and this is by an actual deposit of pigmentin the feathers in position at the time the re-quired change is made. Sometimes colour - changes can be inducedartificially, as witness cayenne-fed canaries andbirds fed on hempseed. Bulfinches and otherbirds turn black on a diet of hempseed. Thenatives of the Amazonian region feed the com-mon green parrot, says Darwin, with the fat oflarge siluroid fishes, and the

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