Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1898 — BIRDS IN BRIDAL ATTIRE. [ARTICLE]

BIRDS IN BRIDAL ATTIRE.

Tbe Feathered Tribe Don Festive Plnmage tor Their Matins. Few persons realize that birds don •pring costumes, yet many of the feathered tribe assume a particular plumage this time of year, putting on what may truly be called their bridal attire. Even the male sparrow wears a black collar when he celebrates spring by courting his lady love. The sparrow’s bridal dress is so like his ordinary plain suit of feathers that it passes unnoticed, but other birds make much greater changes. Take the snipe family, for example. Some of them grow larger feathers around the neck and head, of a color entirely different from the ordinary plumage. The horned or crested grebe is particularly odd. The black feathers worn at other time flat against the head grow into two horned-shaped tufts, and at the same time the whole head appears surrounded by an oriole of blue-black feathers. It is well known that the .bird* of paradise as well as the heron, wear the precious feathers for which we prize them only at this time of the year, when they do their courting. The cardinal bird also changes considerably. His colors get brighter, the spots on the side and back become more pronounced, and he grows long tail feathers, which, if they are not torn from him during the,tourneys with his rivals, he loses naturally a month or two afterward. The weaver birds, in their ordinary garb, a brownish-gray color like the sparrows, change in spring to a veryloud and variegated coat of feathers. Scarlet, red and light blue are mostly the common combinations. All these bridal dresses of birds are not caused by the growth of new feathers, but are simply a change of color. It is odd that black feathers may be changed into white and white into black, but it seems to be only the effect of increased vitality which is responsible for the change of pigment in the feathers.—St. Louis Republic.