Tar and feathers

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tail longish, much rounded, of twelve rounded feathers. During winter, there is an accumulation of soft, downy feathers on the rump.
Bill and feet black. Iris brown. Forehead and feathers covering the nostrils brownish- white; throat, a collar passing round the lower part of the neck, and the lower parts generally of a white colour, slightly tinged with yellowish. The general tint of the upper parts is a dull leaden grey; the back of the neck black; the margins of the quills and coverts dull-white, as are those of the tail feathers, which are broadly tipped with the same. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ PARENTS CARRY WATER Both birds incubate the eggs, the male by night, the female by day, and both parents care for the young. But it is the male only that brings water to the young. He rubs his breast violently up and down on the ground, and then, his feathers awry, he gets into his drinking water and saturates the feathers of his - 179 - under parts. Then, in captivity, he would run to the hen, make a demonstration, whereupon the young would run out from under her, get under him, and suck the water from his feathers. ”

“ They gather their nesting material of feathers and straws and leaves from either shore, and when the young are being fed, insects may be gathered about the Canadian or the United States shore, depending on where the ferryboat is docked. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When fully fledged, the bare parts at the base of the bill, and the basal half of the upper mandible, are light greenish-blue, the rest black; the lower mandible yellow, with a patch of black, an inch and a quarter in length on each side at the end. Legs, tarsi, and toes greenish-blue, the sides yellowish; claws dusky. The feathers of the head are slightly elongated; those of the back are also elongated, but much broader and shorter than in the adult. The feathers on the upper part of the head are of a faint bluish-grey ”

“ When induced to change the scene it steps ashore, and, with a peculiar jerking motion of its tail, showing the white feathers beneath, and very conspicuous by its bright red bill, which harmonizes pleasantly with the green grass, it struts about and picks up worms, insects, snails, or seeds, with unflagging perseverance, making no stay anywhere, and often running rapidly. ”

“ Plumage compact, imbricated, glossy; feathers of the head, neck and breast narrow and pointed; of the back, breast and belly, ovate, distinct, acute; the wing-coverts narrow, acute, compact. Space between the beak and eye barish, being sparsely covered with feathers consisting of a shaft, downy at the base, prolonged into a hair. Eyebrow bare, and greatly projecting. Wings long, second quill longest, first considerably shorter. Tail of ordinary length, rounded, extending considerably beyond the tips of the wings, of twelve broad acute feathers. Tarsus feathered one-third down. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some species are adorned with long, drooping tufts of plumes light as air, as the Red Bird of Paradise, and others bear strange-shaped, [Pg 256] movable shields; part of the family wear ruffs, and others display fans on shoulders or breast; a few sport extravagant length of tail, and one or two show bright-hued wattles; one species is bare-headed, and—other vagaries being exhausted—two have curls. The greater number have an unusual development of two or more feathers into long, wire-like objects, with a patch of web at the ends. ”

“ It is necessary to pull them; the feathers, which by their weight would have caused the stumps to fall out naturally at the right time, being gone. Some farmers, anxious to hurry on the next crop of feathers, are cruel enough to draw the stumps before they are ripe; but nature, as usual, resents the interference with her laws, and the feathers of birds which have been thus treated soon deteriorate. It is best to pluck only once a year. The tails, and the glossy black feathers on the bodies of the birds, having small quills, are not cut, but pulled out ”

“ Bluish slate above and grayish below, with some white tail feathers which show as he flies, he is a pretty sight to behold when one starts a flock of them from some frozen swamp or meadow, where they feed upon seeds and berries. They utter a loud chirp when you disturb them in the winter time, and as they hop about keep up an incessant twittering, which are the only notes you will hear from them, unless you are lucky enough to hear their song which they seldom sing before starting for their summer homes. ”

“ Their flesh is tolerable food, when they are young, on which account many of them are shot. The skin of their body is usually much covered with the mealy substances detached from the roots of the feathers. The head especially is infested by numerous minute insects, all of which shift from the skin to the surface of the plumage, immediately after the bird's death. ”

“ Adult male with a glossy greenish-black head, neck and underparts, the neck being covered behind, in breeding season, with numerous filamentous, whitish plumes. Female and young with neck and breast fawn color in front. Eyes red, face greenish and gular pouch orange. Middle tail feathers curiously crimped. These peculiar birds spend their lives within the recesses of swamps, the more dismal and impenetrable, the better. They perch on limbs overhanging the water and dive after fish, frogs, lizards, etc., that pass beneath, from which they get one of their names, American Darter. ”

“ Tail in young of first year, rounded; in second year, slightly rounded; in third year slightly emarginate, feathers becoming more acute. In adult, forked, outer feathers three-eighths of an inch longer than inner. ”

“ The long tail feathers, which never seem to be in the way, stream after him. The bird is never found except in forests of the loftiest trees, the lower branches of which, being high above the ground, seem to be its favorite resort. ”

“ The tail feathers are the last to come to full length, and you will notice that most birds just out of the nest have very dumpy tails.
A bird's first suit of feathers is called his nestling plumage. In some families it is just like the dress of the grown-up birds, but in others it is not at all like that. It is usually worn only a few weeks, for the young one outgrows it, and needs a new and bigger one before winter.
When a bird is fully dressed, his body is entirely covered, and it looks as if the feathers grew close to each other all over him. ”

“ The sight and sense of smelling are very acute; the head and neck are clothed with narrow, sharp-pointed feathers, of a deep brown colour, bordered with tawny; the hind part of the head is of bright rust colour. These birds are very destructive to fawns, lambs, kids, and all kinds of game, particularly in the breeding season, when they bring a vast quantity of prey to their young. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do the birds that live in the tropics where it is warm have fewer feathers than species of the same size of arctic climates, as one would expect? Are certain types of feathers such as those of aquatic birds better insulated than those of land - 68 - birds, so that the bird requires fewer of them to keep warm? Does a dense coat of down reduce the number of feathers needed to keep warm? ”

“ A few days back someone sent me two feathers. Two bird's feathers in a sheet of note-paper with a coronet, and fastened with a seal. Sent from a place a long way off; from one who need not have sent them back at all. That amused me too, those devilish green feathers. ”

“ This mode of life it never varies: from morning to night, in winter and in summer, it is always climbing up the boles of trees, and when it has reached the top, flying to the base of others. On one solitary occasion I observed one retrace its steps for a few inches, and stand for a second or two with its head downwards; but this is a most unusual position, as indeed may be inferred from the structure of its tail, the feathers of which are rigid, and more or less soiled by constant pressure against the bark. ”

“ The tail is cuneated or wedge-formed, the middle feathers being longer than the outer ones. These feathers are most singularly contrasted with the rest, being of a fine dark green, glossed with gold, and at the tip black, while the three outer feathers on the contrary are white, and from the base downwards nearly to the tip very elegantly marked with oblique indented bars of black, leaving the tip of each feather immaculate ”

“ The bills are covered at the base with downy or velvety feathers, which extend over the nostrils: their wings are long and round; the tail consists of ten feathers, two of them, in some species, very long; legs and feet very long, large, and strong; outer toe longer than inner, and joined to the middle one toward the base; hind-toe very long; claws long and curved. But they are chiefly remarkable for the wonderful development of various parts of their plumage, and for the metallic splendor of its rich hues. ”

“ But they do not take their defeat quietly, or, rather, they do not know when they are beaten, but still remain to harrass their fellow-pirates, just as they did the Oven-birds before, bringing straws and feathers in their beaks, and when forced to drop these materials and chased from the neighbourhood with great noise and fury by the Tree-Martins, it is only to return undaunted in a few minutes, bringing more straws and feathers. ”

“ No sooner has the female completed her set of eggs than she is abandoned by her mate, who now joins others, which form themselves into considerable flocks, and thus remain apart until the young are able to fly, when old and young of both sexes come together, and so remain until the commencement of the next breeding season. In all the nests which I have examined, I have been rather surprised to find a quantity of feathers belonging to birds of other species, even those of the domestic fowl, and particularly of the wild goose and wild turkey. ”