Prehensile tail

“ For their predatory habits they are admirably adapted; their teeth are terrible, and produce a dreadful wound; the neck is slender, the body increasing gradually to about the middle in diameter, and then decreasing. The tail is a grasping instrument, strongly prehensile, and aided by two hooklike claws, sheathed with horn, externally visible on each side, beneath, just anterior to the base of the tail. Though externally nothing beyond these spurs appear, internally is found a series of bones, representing those of the hinder limbs, but of course imperfectly developed ”

“ Of the practical uses of the snake’s tail, the natural uses,—those above mentioned being either imaginary ones, or a mere expression of feeling,—the prehensile power is one of the greatest. ‘Strictly speaking, the true prehensile tail is found only in the boa,’ Schlegel, Owen, and other physiologists tell us ”

“ A moment or two afterwards, the waiter coming round to the chair lately occupied by the professor, held up his hands and exclaimed in astonishment: 'Goodness gracious, the memory man has forgotten his umbrella!'
GOSSIP ABOUT TAILS.
Everybody knows that tails serve a great variety of purposes. To mention a few: The horse and ox use their tail to drive off troublesome insects. Some kinds of apes have long prehensile tails with which they swing themselves from branches or reach distant fruit. The kangaroo's tail forms a kind of extra leg, and is also serviceable in jumping. ”

“ The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails,—aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were, a prehensile tail. ”

“ When in any unaccustomed position, as, for instance, when held in the hand, you will see the tail instantly twining itself about the fingers for safety, the creature trusting itself entirely to its aid, and being helpless when its movements are fettered in any way. If not strictly prehensile in the way of affording support, as the tail of a true boa does, that of Anguis fragilis is not far removed from it. Hold one that is accustomed to be handled and in good health, and permit it to hang by the mere tip, as in the accompanying illustration. ”

“ For how pretty it looked, though dead, lying on its back, the little black legs stuck stiffly up, the long wings pressed against the sides, their black tips touching together like the clasped hands of a corpse; and the fan-like black and white tail, half open as in life, moved perpetually up and down by the wind, as if that tail-flirting action of the bird had continued after death. ”

“ The tail resembles a seal’s tail, being thick and short: his fat is like hog’s lard. He lies commonly upon the ice shoals, and can live a good while on shore, till hunger drives him back into the seas; his nourishment being both herbs and fishes: he snores very loud, when he sleeps; and when he is provoked to anger, he roars like a mad bull. ”

“ When catching the ephemeridæ that play above the water, the tail is not expanded: it is reserved for times of courtship. I have seen the female sitting quietly on a branch, and two males displaying their charms in front of her. One would shoot up like a rocket, than suddenly expanding the snow-white tail like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to show off both back and front. ”

“ Skin, bone, and feathers. Ugh! you would only trouble me in my empty stomach, and there study out at leisure the various odds and ends of my organisation. No, no! get up; give my mouth a wide berth; sit on my tail, if you like the fur.”
Concealing my dread of his hungry fangs, I perched lightly on the tail, where I was not unfrequently disturbed by the tremor of his emotions.
Fellow Sparrows, the tail of a beast of prey is the safest perch, and it affords a true index of the play of passion in the brute. ”

“ In general, the male is larger and more gaily coloured than the female; and he is frequently distinguished by some peculiar development of the tail or its coverts. The tail in this Order has more than the ordinary number of feathers, having from fourteen to eighteen. The species, though inoffensive towards other animals, are irritable and pugnacious between themselves; the males of several species fighting with a determined pertinacity that frequently yields only to death. ”

“ As he gives the blow, his head turns so as to meet the tail half-way—the whole body thus forming a semicircle. Should the prey not be killed by the blow of the tail, it is flung right into the jaws of the monster, where it is sure to be despatched in a trice. ”

“ As soon as its tail is fully grown, he begins about an inch from the extremity of the two longest feathers in it and cuts away the web on both sides of the shaft, making a gap about an inch long. Both male and female wear their tails in this manner, which gives them a remarkable appearance among all other birds.
To observe this bird in his native haunts, one must be in the forest at dawn. He shuns the society of man. ”

“ All the comings and goings took place in silence, over the top of the tree, and I have watched the nest an hour at a time without being able to see a sign of its occupancy, except the one thing a sitting bird cannot hide, the tail. And, by the way, how providential—from the bird student's point of view—that birds have tails! They can, it is true, be narrowed to the width of one feather and laid against a convenient twig, but they cannot be wholly suppressed, nor drawn down out of sight into the nest with the rest of the body. ”

“ The tail is furnished throughout with minute decumbent hairs, excepting a small naked space at the tip beneath, of about one line in length; on the upper surface they are brown, and on the under, they are whitish. The fur of the upper and under parts of the body is deep gray at the base; on the lower part of the cheeks, chin, and on the mesial line of the throat and chest, the hairs are uniform—not gray at the base. The ears are brown, and to the naked eye, appear naked. ”

“ Crest about one third longer than the bill. Tail much graduated. General color above light purplish-blue; wings and tail-feathers ultramarine-blue; the secondaries and tertials, the greater wing-coverts, and the exposed surface of the tail, sharply banded with black and broadly tipped with white, except on the central tail-feathers. Beneath white; tinged with purplish-blue on the throat, and with bluish-brown on the sides. A black crescent on the forepart of the breast, the horns passing forward and connecting with a half-collar on the back of the neck. ”

“ The tail will not drop off, but it will be seen to get shorter and shorter every day; it is not dropping off, but is being carried into the tadpole. The tail is perfect at every stage; it simply disappears. ”

“ For instance, there is one with spiked coat and rough, ringed tail, which has a red head, blue throat, neck and sides, while the back varies from red to brown towards the tail. It sits on a rock and quaintly raises itself up and down on its forelegs. ”

“ The tail is at least as long as the body, even including the neck and the head; when it is spread out it has the shape of a wedge, and has ten large feathers; the four first on each side are the longest, and when the tail is closed they extend beyond the others about an inch ”

“ The tail [Pg 116] will live apart from the body only so long as it retains its early immature form. If you cut it off from a tadpole which is old enough to have lost its external gills a week or more, the tail will not live more than three or four days. And every tail will die as soon as it reaches the point in its development which requires the circulation of the blood as a necessary condition. ”

“ The tail consists of eighteen feathers, which in all are well developed either in breadth or length, and in some extraordinarily; in some cases those of each side are set in different planes, so that the tail folds upon itself perpendicularly, the undersides of the right feathers meeting those of the left. In other or the same genera, the tail-coverts are greatly lengthened. The males generally are of superior size and magnificence to the females; and many shine in the most rich, though not usually showy hues, and reflect the gorgeous refulgence of precious stones, or polished metal. ”

“ They bite it, clutch it, shake it.... At last they have secured a firm grip. The tables are suddenly turned! Now it is the tail which grips and shakes and rocks them to and fro in the air; they are fighting with a real, live, reckless enemy of equal strength, and are permitted to experience the joy of victory.
No spitting or growling is heard; all takes place in dead silence—only the smacks of the tail and the bumps of the paws betray the presence of living beings. They are like shadows tumbling about.... ”

“ In most birds the tail is a kind of balance or steering-gear, and not of equal importance with the wings. Nature, consequently, seems to have attached less importance to the feathers of the tail. They are not so firmly set, nor are they of the same quality or kind; for, unlike the wing feathers, if a tail feather is lost [Pg 40] through accident, it is made good, no matter when. ”

“ As it will use none of the good gifts of Nature, one by one she takes them away—eye and brain are the first to go; then the tail begins to grow less and less (you can see the last remnants of a tail in fig. 3) , and finally there is neither head nor tail, power of sight, nor power of motion; all that remains is an irregular-looking leathery lump, which scarcely seems to be alive (fig. 4) . It feeds by drawing water through a hole at its upper end into a great throat pierced by gill-slits (shown in fig. 5, which represents a sea-squirt with the outside wall cut away) ”

“ Red-tails, like other hawks, show a great variation in plumage. The dark phase of a Western Red-tail compares favorably with the plumage of an adult Golden Eagle, but the smaller size and the reddish upper tail surface which reflects the sun as the bird soars, furnishes the clue. ”

“ The difference is not even in the fact that we have no tails; for some of the apes also are as tailless as we are. Besides, when you come to think of it, most animals do not have tails—insects do not, nor clams and oysters, nor sea-anemones and star-fish, nor corals and sponges, nor frogs and toads, nor jelly-fish; even the birds, unless you count the feathers as part, do not have tails that one could really wag.
After all, too, we human beings do have tails; or at least a string of tail bones, an inch or more long, tucked away inside our skins. ”

“ Their fleshy tails are quite loosely affixed, being deeply constricted all round where they join the body. A slight touch will break them off—so much so that at times the getje seems almost to throw them off. Then is seen a strange thing. The tail jumps about in the most lively manner, and thus attracts the attention of the pursuer, while the getje quietly and unobtrusively moves away unobserved—and goes and grows another tail! ”

“ Tail with five to six bands of dull white, or pale ochraceous (the last terminal) , composed of transverse oval spots, those on the middle pair of feathers not touching either the shaft or the edge. Ear-coverts uniform brown, becoming gradually paler beneath the eye and on the cheeks; eyebrows, a transverse chin-patch,—covering the whole chin and jaw and reaching back beneath the auriculars, and another across the jugulum, immaculate cottony-white; shafts of the loral bristles blackish ”

“ The tail is of service as a sculling-oar and a rudder, and its loud slapping of the water when an alarmed animal dives is an effective signal of danger to others. The head is thick and broad, the nose obtuse, the eyes small, the ears short and rounded. ”

“ As he sings, his tail droops, but when he is bustling about on every-day business he is given to changing his attitude with the passing instants—now he is fluffy, now sleek; up goes his tail; he jumps; he flashes his wings, droops them and spreads his tail. ”

“ His tail, which is shaggy and about one foot in length, he turns over his back at pleasure, to make himself appear larger and higher than he really is. When his tail is thus lying on his back he is prepared for war, and generally conquers every enemy that lives by air, for on this lies his only weapon: about one inch from his body or rump, in a small bladder or bag, which is full of essence, whose tint is of the brightest yellow, and odour somewhat like the smell of garlic, but far more exquisite and piercing than any volatile spirit known to chemists. ”

“ The tail is long, short, tufted, or reduced to a mere tubercle, and it may be quite invisible externally. Some have the hair of the head long, and radiating in all directions; others have the face encircled by a kind of mane. ”

“ In 1882 the black-tail was very much more abundant than the white-tail almost everywhere in the West, but owing to the nature of its haunts it is more easily killed out, and in 1897, through both species has decreased in numbers, the white-tail was on the whole the more common. ”

“ Oh, that tail—that awful, writhing, lashing tail! I can stand Indians, bears, wolves, anything but that tail, and a rattler is all tail, except its head. If that tail touches me I shall let go. It did touch me, I did not let go. Pride held me there, for I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Whiskers' empty saddle had alarmed the rest of the party. ”

“ This penciling should extend from the throat to the very tip of the tail. A well-penciled tail is very desirable, and quite difficult to obtain, as there is a special tendency in the long feathers to lose the straightness across of the markings. Tails penciled squarely across to the very tip can be and are bred, but they are never common. One of the greatest faults to which the plumage is liable is the irregular and “horse-shoe” style of markings which we so often see in the breast, and, in fact, nearly every part of the hen’s plumage. ”