Pluck

“ Your pluck has saved your life; but remember, I've not said I won't shoot him or your father, if chance throws them in my way," he added, looking back over his shoulder with a malicious leer, as he left the arbor, then disappearing from sight among the trees and shrubbery beyond. ”

“ We find that they mostly acquire an affection for their horses—as they look upon them, and they should not be altogether discouraged from so doing—barring some unfortunate animal that is obliged to become a crib-biter, &c., but in favour of which they are generally willing to admit either pluck or something else. ”

“ An assistant to hold the goose during the plucking simplifies the work greatly. In plucking, part of the soft feathers of the breast, sides, abdomen and back are taken but these sections should not be plucked clean. It is especially important that enough short feathers be left to support the wings. ”

“ And surely, no plume-bearing bird ever enlisted in a better cause, or on a more satisfactory basis; for to-day the plume crop is being grown and plucked and marketed with almost as much certainty as the annual crop of wool. ”

“ Before the dogs could grip him by the ear, his one weak point, and pin him down, his sharp teeth would often wound or even kill both the hunter and his dogs. The pluckier the animal the louder the praise sung in his honor when his head was brought into the hall. ”

“ The birds are plucked before they are a year old, and I think that no one as yet knows the limit of age to which they will live and be plucked. I saw birds which had been plucked for sixteen years and were still in high feather. ”

“ On a large farm, when plucking is contemplated, it is anything but an easy matter to collect the birds—the gathering together of ours was generally a work of three days. Men have to be sent out in all directions to drive the birds up, by twos and threes, from the far-off spots to which they have wandered; little troops are gradually brought together, and collected, first in a large enclosure, then in a small one, the plucking-kraal, in which they are crowded together so closely, that the most savage bird has no room to make himself disagreeable. ”

“ After last lecture, in which you remember I challenged our physiologists to tell me how a bird flies, one of you, whose pardon, if he thinks it needful, I ask for this use of his most timely and illustrative statement, came to me, saying, "You know the way in which we are shown how a bird flies, is, that any one, a dove for instance, is given to us, plucked, and partly skinned, and incised at the insertion of the wing bone ”

“ An old stocking is drawn over the head of the victim, and the bird held in the plucker's lap on a burlap apron; then the soft feathers on the body are quickly and very gently removed; but those on the side of the body which support the wings should not be taken. ”

“ The quills plucked from well-fed living birds have most elasticity, and are least subject to be moth-eaten. The best are those plucked, or which are spontaneously cast in the month of May or June, because they are then fully ripe. ”

“ A strange creature was kneeling behind her—a creature dressed in black sateen, and like no human being that she had ever met before. For it was two-faced!
One face (the front) was blowzy and freckled, with a small pug nose and a quarrelsome mouth. The other (the face on what, with ordinary persons, was the back of the head) was dark and forbidding, its nose a large brick-colored pug, the mouth underneath shaped most extraordinarily—not unlike a barrette, for it was wide and long, and square at the corners, and full of shining tortoise-shell teeth! ”

“ The young in due time assume the development of mature birds, and all wear the sober plumage of the mother. And now there also appears a surprising change in the appearance of our gayly attired musician. His showy plumage of contrasting white and black, so conspicuous and striking, changes with almost instant rapidity into brown and drab, until he is no longer distinguishable, either by plumage or note, from his mate or young. ”

“ Undoubtedly the bird’s plumage—which, as I have told you, resembles in its brown crosswise stripes on the breast the plumage of certain birds of prey—has fostered this popular belief in the changing of the cuckoo into a sparrow-hawk and of the sparrow-hawk into a cuckoo. People have allowed themselves to be deceived by this variegated dress. ”

“ The plumage accords with the description given in our works of natural history of this bird. Some bird-fanciers observe, that they can distinguish male from female birds by the sub-scapular feathers near the base; the male birds having always an odd number—as five, seven, nine, eleven; and the females always an even number—as six, eight, twelve, &c., according to the species. But, examining, on a subsequent occasion, a male specimen of this bird, I found no difference of plumage, so as to form a sexual distinction. ”

“ All our finest singing birds are plainly coloured, with no crests, neck or tail plumes to display. The gorgeously ornamented birds of the tropics have no song, and those which expend much energy in display of plumage, as the turkey and peacocks, have comparatively an insignificant development of voice. [76] The extraordinary manner in which birds display their plumage at the time of courting is well known. Let us take one example—the courtship of the Argus pheasant. This bird is noted for the extreme beauty of the male's plumage. ”

“ But there are yet two birds, which I think well to put with our eight dabchicks, though they are much larger than any of them,—partly because of their disposition, and partly because of their plumage,—the water-rail, and water-hen. Modern science, with instinctive horror of all that is pretty to see, or easy to remember, entirely rejects the plumage, as any element or noticeable condition of bird-kinds ”

“ At this moment all the beauty of the plumage is exhibited, and strikes the beholder with pleasure. It never utters any sound whilst on wing, unless during the love season; but at all other times, no sooner has this bird alighted than its remarkable voice is heard, at almost every leap which it makes, whilst ascending against the upper parts of the trunk of a tree, or its highest branches. ”

“ It is remarkable that, at this season, males in full beauty of plumage are as numerous as during the summer months in far more northern parts, where they breed; and you may see different gradations of plumage, from the dingy greenish-brown of the female and young to the richest tints of the oldest and handsomest male; while along with these there are others which, by my habit of examining birds, I knew to be old, and which are of a yellowish-green, neither the colour of the young males, nor that of the females, but a mixture of all. ”

“ Adult Male: Breeding Plumage: Head, throat, neck, and upper half of back black; breast, belly, shoulders, lower half of back a bright chestnut brown; wings and tail dark brown; wing-feathers tipped or edged with white, forming a bar across wing. The winter plumage is different from the breeding plumage; the male passes through several changes as he matures. ”

“ The Young in their winter plumage have the colouring distributed as in the old birds, but with the black duller, the wings more brown, the throat and sides of the head mottled with white, the white line from the bill to the eye existing, but the bill much smaller, without furrows or a white line. ”

“ It seems scarcely necessary to describe a bird so familiarly known; to dilate upon its light coronet of lance-tipped feathers, its taper neck, and swelling breast of changeable purple, its back and wings of brassy-green, or its superb lengthened tail-coverts, with their dilated tips marked with eye-spots of the richest purple, surrounded by rings of green, black, and chestnut, radiant with gem-like reflections. ”

“ One's head, projecting over their hard, sharp, uncompromising lines, catches the eye of a wary bird, and recesses made by their angles are not often to be found where one wants them. Twice has the mother duck been slightly suspicious, and now, to my chagrin—though it really should not be, for what can be more entertaining?—she goes to the length of calling her ducklings off the rock. ”

“ When their nesting haunts are invaded or their feeding grounds disturbed this call expresses their displeasure.
Field marks.—In spring plumage the knot is easily recognized by its reddish breast, which, however, is not as conspicuous as might be expected. In immature and winter plumage the best character is the absence of any conspicuous field mark. Even in flight it seems to be a plain gray bird; the rump and tail appear but little lighter than the rest of the upper parts and the faint white line in the wings is hardly noticeable. ”

“ Light, thin, long, sharp, with enormous spread of wings, beautiful with the beauty of dead, blue-black sheen, and yet hideous, too, with their grisly necks and cruel, crooked beaks and vulture eyes, they were surely magnificent specimens of winged creation. ”

“ When flushed the bird rushes away with a wild zigzag flight, close to the ground, then suddenly drops like a stone, disappearing at the same moment from sight as effectively as if the earth had swallowed it up, so perfect is the protective resemblance in the colouring of the upper plumage to the ground. ”

“ A duck ten years old has been known to assume both the perfect winter and summer plumage of the drake. [117] Waterton [118] gives a curious case of a hen which had ceased laying, and had assumed the plumage, voice, spurs, and warlike disposition of the cock; when opposed to an enemy she would erect her hackles and show fight. Thus every character, even to the instinct and manner of fighting, must have lain dormant in this hen as long as her ovaria continued to act. ”

“ Even the females and young assume something of the same pompous demeanour, spread out their tails, and run round each other, purring loudly, and performing extravagant leaps. At length, when the weather appears settled, and all around is quiet, the whole party mounts to the tops of the highest trees, whence, at a signal, consisting of a single cluck, given by a leader, the flock takes flight for the opposite shore. ”

“ The strong beak and claw, the gaze that can see so far, and the mighty spread of wings that can lift it till it is an invisible speck in the blue vault, go along with the instinct of paternity: and the fledglings in the nest look up at the fierce beak and bright eyes, and know no terror. ”

“ But with many birds there can hardly be a doubt that the summer plumage is ornamental, even when both sexes are alike. We may conclude that this is the case with many herons, egrets, &c., for they acquire their beautiful plumes only during the breeding-season. Moreover, such plumes, top-knots, &c., though possessed by both sexes, are occasionally a little more developed in the male than in the female; and they resemble the plumes and ornaments possessed by the males alone of other birds. ”

“ One interesting fact about these birds is that they show two sets of plumage. Thus, while each bird, as it gets older, usually changes its immature and almost uniform dusky plumage for a white under-surface, an incomplete white collar, and a blackish cap, yet some retain the dusky plumage throughout life. ”

“ Adult male in molting plumage may be distinguished from the adult female by the greater brilliancy of the blue and metallic green on the wing, the plain dark upper tail-coverts, and the general darker color of the entire plumage ”

“ In a few days the pupa skin is cast; the insect, availing itself of its old habiliments as a raft upon which to float while its body is drying, grows lighter, and its wings expand for its marriage flight. ”

“ Many of the birds of prey roamed about by night as well as by day. The harsh scream of the heron, the quack of the wild duck, the piping of the kittyneedy (common sandpiper) , the birbeck of the muirfowl, the wail of the plover, the curlee of the curlew, and the boom of the snipe, were often heard at night, in the regions frequented by these birds. Then again, by the sea-side, he would hear by night the shrill piping of the redshank and ring-dotterel, and the pleck-pleck of the oyster-catcher, as they came down from their breeding-grounds to the shore, to feed or to hold their conclaves. ”

“ The birds, too, are new, and we are always looking out for them. Perhaps we see a top-heavy pelican balancing his huge yellow bill over the edge of the stream and fishing for his dinner—or a flight of wild geese trailing across the sky toward sunset—or a select society of vultures perched all in a row upon a ledge of rock and solemn as the bench of bishops. ”

“ The eagle and the crow flew away. Suddenly they caught sight of a fallen horse, and they alighted upon it. The crow began to pick its flesh and found it very good. The eagle tasted it once, then a second time, then shook its pinions and said to the crow: “No, brother crow; rather than live on carrion for three hundred years, I would prefer to drink live blood but once, and trust in God for what might happen afterwards!”’ What do you think of the Calmuck’s story?” ”

“ That the male birds should, in the beginning, have consciously displayed their plumage, in however slight a manner, to the females, with an idea of it striking them, seems improbable, and, even if we might assume the intelligence requisite for this, the theory of sexual selection supposes the beauty of the plumage to have been gained by the display of it, not that the display has been founded upon the beauty. ”

“ The plumage of the male is, in most cases, intensely black, and there is a pure white bar on the remiges, hidden when the bird is perched, and when it flies made doubly conspicuous by the peculiar motion of the wings. In all the known species the female has a dull brown plumage, lined or mottled with dusky tints, and with some portion of the wing-quills marked with rufous or chestnut colour. ”

“ Whether it be standing in or near a reed-bed, erect, with neck preternaturally elongated and beak pointed upwards, or crouching against a riverside tree-stump, the attitude is calculated to deceive the eyes of all but the keenest observers, especially since the colour of the bird's plumage harmonizes in a remarkable degree with that of the natural surroundings. ”