ommunicated to me some much
more remarkable facts of the same nature. The natives of the Amazonian
region feed the common green parrot (_Chrysotis festiva_, Linn.) with
the fat of large Siluroid fishes, and the birds thus treated become
beautifully variegated with red and yellow feathers. In the Malayan
archipelago, the natives of Gilolo alter in an analogous manner the
colours of another parrot, namely, the _Lorius garrulus_, Linn., and
thus produce the _Lori rajah_ or King-Lory. These parrots in the Malay
Islands and South America, when fed by the natives on natural vegetable
food, such as rice and plantains, retain their proper colours. Mr.
Wallace has, also, recorded[695] a still more singular fact. "The
Indians (of S. America) have a curious art by which they change the
colours of the feathers of many birds. They pluck out those from the
part they wish to paint, and inoculate the fresh wound with the milky
secretion from the skin of a small toad. The feathers grow of a
brilliant yellow colour, and on being plucked out, it is said, grow
again of the same colour without any fresh operation."

Bechstein[696] does not entertain any doubt that seclusion from light
affects, at least temporarily, the colours of cage-birds.

It is well known that the shells of land-mollusca are affected by the
abundance of lime in different districts. Isidore Geoffroy St.
Hilaire[697] gives the case of _Helix lactea_, which has recently been
carried from Spain to the South of France and to the Rio Plata, and in
both these countries now presents a distinct appearance, but whether
this has resulted from food or climate is not known. With respect to
the common oyster, Mr. F. Buckland informs me that he can generally
distinguish the shells from different districts; young oysters brought
from Wales and laid down in beds where "_natives_" are indigenous, in
the short space of two months begin to assume the "native" character.
M. Costa[698] has recorded a much more remarkable case of the same
nature, namely, that young shells taken from the shores of England and
placed in the Mediterranean, at once altered their manner of growth and
formed prominent diverging rays, like those on the shells of the proper
Mediterranean oyster. The same individual shell, showing both forms of
growth, was exhibited before a society in