Tar and feathering

“ The growth of the feathers is, however, certainly affected by the general health of the bird, mal-nutrition causing the appearance of peculiar transverse V-shaped grooves, at more or less regular intervals, along the whole length of the feather. ”

“ In a climate where the attacks of fleas are a constant source of annoyance, any method which will alleviate them becomes a desideratum. It is, therefore, with pleasure I make known the following recipe, which I am assured has been tried with efficacy.
Boil a quart of tar until it becomes quite thin. Remove the clothing, and before the tar becomes perfectly cool, with a broad flat brush, apply a thin, smooth coating to the entire surface of the body and limbs. While the tar remains soft, the flea becomes entangled in its tenacious folds, and is rendered perfectly harmless ”

“ If the feathers get soiled with grease, blood and dirt, wash the plumage with clean turpentine and a soft tooth-brush, apply an abundance of plaster Paris, rub it into the feathers, and immediately beat it out with a supple switch, or piece of stiff wire of proper size. If you have not these materials, wash the feathers with warm water and a little soap, and dry as best you can, according to what you have. Manipulate the feathers while they are drying and they will come out soft and fluffy as in life ”

“ If, led by the evidence that in animals the amount of covering is in some cases affected by the degree of exposure, it were admitted as imaginable that the development of feathers from preceding dermal growths had resulted from that extra nutrition caused by extra superficial circulation, we should still be without explanation of the structure of a feather. Nor should we have any clue to the specialities of feathers—the crests of various birds, the tails sometimes so enormous, the curiously placed plumes of the bird of paradise, &c., &c. ”

“ With first one foot, then the other, she scratches her head with inconceivable rapidity. Then, getting a little oil from her receptacle, she begins to preen; under the left wing, down each feather, occasionally darting her bill like lightning upon some other feather that appears to her to need attention. Such screwing of the neck, twisting of the body, standing on tiptoes to get to the feathers on her body, such stretching to reach the tips! ”

“ The lower back is of a deep crimson. The throat flames like an emerald. The tail is the chief feature, the feathers being broad, and greatly lengthened, in regular graduation from the central ones to the outmost pair, which are double the length of the entire bird besides. The form of the tail is widely forked, its outline having a double curve, somewhat lyre-shaped. The tail-coverts are ruddy brown; and the feathers themselves are of the richest and most glowing fire-colour, incomparably lustrous; each feather being broadly tipped with velvety black. ”

“ For target practice a wire nail driven into the end of the pile, as shown on page 227, with the head of the nail filed off and pointed, makes an excellent head. Feathering is the next operation. Turkey and goose feathers are generally used. Strip off the broader side of the vane of three feathers and glue them to the shaft one inch and a quarter from the notch, spacing them equally from each other. One feather should be placed at right angles to the notch. ”

“ Although alkalies and heat are applied and necessary for washing or scouring, that is, cleaning and ungreasing the feathers, strong alkaline and excessive heat operating together are as fatal for feathers as they are for any other animal fibre,—wool or silk,—and strong heat applied to dry feathers is apt to irretrievably ruin them. ”

“ It is thus easier to believe that a sudden check, either by a change of temperature, or by wet and cold, or by want of sunshine, or by change in food, has for the time so far affected the tissue metabolism of the bird that a feather which began to grow upon a circulation lacking pigment particles, and which was therefore originally planned for the paler plumage, may, by a sudden increase in the metabolism of the bird, and so in the output of waste products to the blood, be completed as a feather of the more deeply pigmented plumage, thus producing a feather with the characters of both. ”

“ It is, however, extremely simple and easy to execute; besides, almost instantaneous, and therefore of great utility where rapid work is required, because it leaves the feathers perfectly in shape, like the benzene washing process, and does not affect the curling of the feather, if there is such. Old feathers which were already dyed cream, rose, salmon, light blue, light gray, light green, sea green, golden yellow, heliotrope or beige, can be redyed in the same colors, but must previously be washed with benzene; new white feathers do not require such washing. ”

“ While fresh, fat is merely so much clean oil smeared on the feathers. An old, dry duck, goose, swan, penguin, auk, or albatross skin is liable to have the feathers of the breast and abdomen all caked together in a solid mass of rancid, yellow grease, to which time has added a quantity of museum dirt. In mounting one of the charming specimens of this too numerous class, it is not always safe to clean the feathers before inserting the body. There is danger that the skin will go to pieces. ”

“ Powder-down feathers are degenerate down-feathers which appear to secrete a dry, waxy kind of powder. This powder rapidly disintegrates and becomes distributed over the plumage, adding thereto a quite peculiar bloom. In birds of the heron tribe powder-down feathers have reached a high degree of development, forming large patches in the breast and thighs, while in some hawks, and in the parrots, these mysterious feathers are scattered singly over the greater part of the body.
The nature of the covering of nestling birds is of a more complex character than has hitherto been suspected. ”

“ The blood dries up when the feather has unfolded to its full size, leaving it light and dry, with a horny part at the root that sticks in the hole where it grew, and a spray-like part that makes up most of the feather. ”

“ The tail is very short, and the middle feather the longest: the others on each side shorten gradually, and are of the colour of the rest of the bird, only somewhat darker: the two shortest or outermost feathers arc perfectly white, which the bird has a faculty of flirting out on either side as quick as a flash of lightning, especially when he hears or sees any thing that disturbs him, uttering at the same instant an extreme harsh and loud shriek. ”

“ Apparently shortly after the female goes into the retirement of her walled-in nest, she molts all her flight feathers, so that she is flightless, and then begins to grow them again.
When the female bursts out of the nest with the young only partly grown, the young that remain in a still very undeveloped state in the nest, using material in the nest such as remains of food and rotten wood, replaster the hole! The young, perhaps only halfway through their fledgling period, wall themselves in! The female then helps the male care for the young. ”

“ Short and blunt as his tail looks when he flies, each feather ends in a hard sharp point which sticks out beyond the soft part. They feed on insects which they catch as they dash through the air, and can also break off dry twigs for nest-building without stopping—sometimes seizing the little sticks in their bills and sometimes in their claws, which are much stronger than those of Swallows."
"How do they make the sticks stay in the chimney? What do they set them on, and how do they perch while they are building?" asked Nat, all in one breath. ”

“ Soap and brush one string at a time, manipulate them much after the manner of a woman handling a large wash. Be careful to give minute attention to the bottom portion of the feathers, as the flues are always more closely stuck together with the natural grease of the bird, and it often requires an amount of hard labor to remove. Repeat the washing operation and rinse off in about three luke warm waters, starch and dry.
In starching rub the feathers around well between the hands for the purpose of getting all the flues thoroughly expanded, squeeze out of bath and hang on lines to dry. ”

“ Prepare your feathers, whether dirty whites or faded out light colors, by washing thoroughly in hot soap suds and rinsing well in hot water. Prepare your bath as follows: Take about a half teaspoonful of safranine and dilute in one gallon, more or less, of boiling water, and add thereto a half tablespoonful of extract of archil. Enter your feathers and let them remain in bath about two minutes; after which take out and add to bath a few drops of diluted violet, and re-enter your feathers, letting them remain in bath about one minute longer. ”

“ For the lighter one I recommend the hen pheasant's or brown owl's wing feather, dubbed with hare's ear and yellow silk; for the dark, the tail feather of a partridge, a brown red hackle underneath the wings, and dark orange silk, or a woodcock's feather for wings, and a dark red hackle with dark orange silk,—kills exceedingly well. When the water is low and fine, I consider your chance of killing fish far greater with two, than three of the large spring flies. ”

“ The tail feathers are of a glossy green. The under surface uniformly is of a glossy blackish green, but the base of each feather is a chestnut, and this colour appears on the least derangement of the plumage. The limbs are remarkably stout, and the robust tarsi are of a yellow colour. The voice is a sort of crow—hoarse and short, and very different from the clear notes of defiance uttered by our farmyard chanticleer. This species has the habit, when fatigued, of resting on the tarsi or legs, as we have seen the emu do under similar circumstances. ”

“ For their stationary habits expose their feathers to much greater risks than are run by those of insects that are more constantly in flight, and on this account they are provided with this protecting shield. The feather of an insect has neither barbs nor shaft. For, though it is called a feather, it is no feather at all, but merely a skin-like membrane that, owing to its dryness, necessarily becomes detached from the surface of the body, as the fleshy substance grows cold. ”

“ His enormously long tail feathers are so fantastic, so almost grotesque! They render him a kind of monstrosity. One feels as if he had been made, not born; and some Oriental must have been the maker.
Yet if ever a bird was alive, he is. His spirits are effervescent and apparently inexhaustible. Few birds are noisier or more continually on the move. When six or eight scissor-tails meet for consultation in one small tree, even though it be in a cemetery, there are “great doings,” as the country phrase is. ”

“ The tail of the male is imperfect, the bird being in moult, but the longest existing feather is one of the uropygials and is an old feather, and the short outermost feathers are nearly half inch shorter than the corresponding ones in the female. ”

“ Ground-color of the lower parts white, each feather with a medial stripe of black, this throwing off distinct bars to the edge of the feather; the medial black is largest on sides of the breast, where it expands into very large conspicuous spots, having a slight rusty exterior suffusion; the abdomen medially, the anal region, and the lower tail-coverts, are almost unvaried white. ”

“ The beautiful, soft, whitish bloom seen on some birds' feathers, such as the pale gray of a male marsh hawk and filmy appearance of some herons' plumage, is caused by specialized feathers called "powder down." Sometimes this powder down is scattered through the plumage; sometimes it is in patches, such as the particularly conspicuous ones in the herons. The tips of the powder down are continually breaking off and sifting over the rest of the plumage, giving it the bloom that with handling quickly rubs off. ”

“ And when it reaches its full length the animal breaks itself free and swims away, leaving the stem behind.
The rosy feather-star lives in rather deep water, from which it is sometimes brought up by means of the dredge. It can crawl about on the ground by means of its sucker-like feet, and can swim through the water with some little speed. And very often, to save itself trouble, it will cling by means of its rays to a piece of floating wood, and allow itself to be carried for long distances by the waves. ”

“ It would seem that while the feather germ may be artificially stimulated to produce three successive generations of feathers within a year, it may, on the other hand, be induced artificially to maintain a continuous activity extending over long periods. That is to say, the normal quiescent period, and periodic moult, may be suspended, so that the feather maintains a steady and continuous growth till it attains a length of several feet. ”

“ In such weather they will fly backwards and forwards by the side of a hedge for a length of time, skimming just above the grass, when, looking down on them instead of up at them, the white bar across the lower part of the body just before the tail forks is very noticeable. The darker feathers have a glossy bluish tinge on the black. They seem fond of flying round and near horses and cattle, as if insects were more numerous near animals. ”

“ Feathers and coloured fur or wool secured to a hook, in the shape of a rough hairy worm, form a very killing bait for both sea and river fish. It is hard to say what these anomalous-looking contrivances are taken for. Flies they in no way resemble. Still they are greedily snapped at by the fish, and that is the main point after all. The Indians of the lakes and Pacific coast of America make use of a very singular feather contrivance, with which they attract the fish within their reach. ”