Читать книгу Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens онлайн

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The observation of these patterns should extend throughout the year if it is to be complete. The typical pheasants are only in perfect plumage in winter, and these delicate ornaments are much affected by the physical condition of the wearer. In the fish, as we have seen, they almost entirely disappear after the bodily vigour of the spring season has departed. In late summer and early autumn the pheasants and peacocks are moulting; the tropical moths, on the other hand, which have such beautiful analogies with the bird plumage, are hatching out in May. The pretty little tropical finches take far less time to moult than some of the larger birds, or are less affected in plumage, and the minute but accurate reproductions of the patterns on the wood-duck, wild duck, and jungle-fowl which appear on their diminutive bodies may be seen at almost any season in the Parrot House. The flower gardening at the Zoo is now maintained at so high a pitch of elaboration and beauty, that it would not be difficult to provide instances of animal pattern in beds of peacock iris, and of other plants which reproduce the less elaborate but equally distinct forms of pattern of which examples have been given above.