3 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"PLEASED WITH A FEATHER." 



Br Professob GRANT ALLEN. 



A MURKY London winter afternoon is not exactly a good oppor- 

 tunity for the pursuit of natural history. The snow lies thick 

 on the pavement outside, half melted into muddy slush ; while the fo^ 

 penetrates through the cracks in the woodwork, and the sun struggles 

 feebly athwart the thick yellow sheet which shuts off his rays from 

 the lifeless earth. If I wish to go on a botanical or entomological ex- 

 cursion to-day, I must perforce content myself with a " Voyage autour 

 de ma Chambre." So I rise listlessly from my easy-chair ; perambu- 

 late the drawing-room in a sulky mood ; peer at the Japanese fans on 

 the mantel-shelf ; rearrange for the twentieth time those queer little 

 pipkins we brought on our last vacation ramble from Morlaix ; pull 

 about my wife's old Chelsea in a savage fit of tidiness ; and finally 

 relapse upon the sofa with a fixed determination to be inconsolably 

 miserable for the rest of the day. Evidently I am suffering from that 

 mysterious British epidemic, the spleen, and I may be shortly expected 

 to plunge incontinently over "Waterloo Bridge. 



Meanwhile, I find a momentary solace in the Indian cushion which 

 lies under my head. A feather is just pushing its sharper end through 

 the morocco-leather groundwork, between those gorgeous masses of 

 gold, silver, and crimson embroidery ; which feather I forthwith begin 

 to egg out, by dexterous side pressure, with admirable industry, worthy 

 of a better cause. My wife, looking up from her crewels, mutters 

 something inarticulate about some one who finds some mischief still 

 for idle hands to do ; but her obdurate husband pretends inattention, 

 and finally succeeds in catching the feather-end between his finger and 

 thumb. Now that I have successfully pulled it out, I begin to examine 

 it closely, and bethink myself of how, in brighter summer weather, I 

 dissected a daisy for the benefit of such among the readers of the 

 " Cornhill Magazine " as honored me with their kind attention. I shall 

 take a closer look at this feather, and see if it, too, may not serve as a 

 text for a humble lay-sermon concerning the nature and development 

 of feathers in general, and the birds or human beings who wear them. 



For the interesting point about a feather is really this, that it grew. 

 It was not made in a moment, like a bullet poured red-hot into a 

 mold : its little airy plumes, branched like a fern into tiny waving 

 filaments, were developed by slow steps, piece after piece, and spikelet 

 after spikelet. And what is true of this particular bit of down which 

 I hold in my fingers, trembling like gossamer at every breath and every 

 pulse, is also true of plumage as a whole in the history of animal evo- 

 lution. To my mind that great fact, that everything has grown, 

 throws a fresh and wonderful interest into every little object which we 



