Bird lore - Project Puffin

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Bird - Lore
Young birds are usually colored more nearly like the adult female than
the male. Few instances occur where the female is larger or more brilliantly
colored than the male, a fact which helps many times. It is usually the male,
also, who wears special ornaments in the mating season, though, as in the case
of the Herons and Egrets, both sexes may be adorned. How far the necessity
for protection, especially during the nesting-season, has influenced the colora-
tion of plumage is not definitely known. Some male birds which are highly
colored do not seem to be better protected or as well as their duller mates.
Two men who worked a lifetime gathering together facts such as those about the
coloration of plumage attempted to explain the variations which they ob-
served in different ways. The names of these men you ought at least to know,
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace. Perhaps you can find pictures
of them and learn something of their lives and the kind of books they wrote.
Their theories are too advanced for you to study now, but as you near college
age, you will look forward to learning many things which they wrote. It is
interesting to know that what appears to be so simple an object as a bird's
feather is so intricate and hard to explain, even by men of science.—A. H. W.
QUESTIONS
1. What creatures have a covering of feathers, fur, or scales?
2. Which of these three coverings is the most desirable for protective purposes?
3. Can you give examples of any birds whose plumage changes by wear? By fading?
4. What is the 'eclipse' plumage of male Ducks? How long is it worn?
5. Are you familiar with the male and female Purple Finch or Rose-breasted Grosbeak
and Indigo Bunting? Have you pictures of them?
6. Can you tell a young Starling from an adult female?
7. What birds have spotted breasts in juvenal plumage and plain breasts in adult
plumage?
8. What highly colored males change to the color of the females after the nesting
period? Do you think this change might be a protection to them as they migrate South?
9. Look up the derivation of altricial and prsecocial. Reference: See Chapman's
'Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America,' pp. 84-90 and color-chart, p. 26.
SPELLING EXERCISE
natal immaculate molt adult metallic
postnatal juvenal iridescent sequence altricial
plumage prenuptial nuptial coloration prsecocial
A. H. W,
FOR AND FROM ADULT AND YOUNG
OBSERVERS
AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE
It is a well-known fact that birds like plenty of elbow-room in building their
nests, which may make the following story interesting to Bird-Lore bird-lovers.