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CHAP. 42.—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF BIRDS WHICH AFFORD OMENS BY THEIR NOTE—BIRDS WHICH CHANGE THEIR COLOUR AND THEIR VOICE.

There is another remarkable fact too, relative to the birds which give omens by their note; they generally change their colour and voice at a certain season of the year, and suddenly become quite altered in appearance; a thing that, among the larger birds, happens with the crane only, which grows black in its old age. From black, the blackbird changes to a reddish colour, sings in summer, chatters in winter, and about the summer solstice loses its voice; when a year old, the beak also assumes the appearance of ivory; this, however, is the case only with the male. In the summer, the thrush is mottled about the neck, but in the winter it becomes of one uniform colour all over.

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load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
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