Question of Birds' oiling their Plumage. 159 



serable appearance" to their original beauty) leads me to 

 suspect that you have been trying your hand at some bungling 

 experiments, and that you have failed in your object. It 

 neither requires the aid of chemistry, nor that of a tedious 

 process, to put all to rights again, after a land bird has been 

 immersed in the water. 



It is somewhat arrogant in the Rev. F. O. Morris to insi- 

 nuate that I am " blinded by prejudice," because I do not 

 submit to what he, in his inexperience, considers " can almost 

 be demonstrated." " Almost," forsooth ! Why, this puts 

 me in mind of the Frenchman, who had almost found out the 

 art of living without food ; but, somehow or other, he hap- 

 pened to die on the seventeenth day through pure emptiness. 

 Will his reverence take the trouble to demonstrate fully (I'll 

 have no almosts) that the dipper walks at the bottom of the 

 water? and then I will strike to his superior weight of know- 

 ledge. In the meantime, I would put him in mind that he 

 has not refuted any part of my theory already advanced, to 

 show that birds cannot, by any means, walk on the ground 

 under water. 



The reverend ornithologist asks, if any birds are entirely 

 devoid of the oil gland ? This is evidently a question from 

 one in rudiments. A very moderate attention to ornithology 

 would have taught him, that there are birds with tails, and 

 birds without tails. So that the robin of the Rev. F. O. 

 Morris, having a tail, would have wherewith to anoint its 

 plumage : but my barn-door fowl, having no tail, would not 

 have wherewith to anoint its plumage ; and, of course, it 

 would be obliged to remain ungreased. Then the upshot 

 would be, that my poor rumpless bird might catch a severe 

 cold, or sore throat, when " exposed to a shower of rain," 

 unless it applied in time to its more fortunate neighbour's 

 toilette for a beak-full or two of his best Macassar. This 

 act of nature, in furnishing some birds with an oil gland, for 

 the purpose of oiling their feathers, according to the doctrine 

 of the Rev. F. O. Morris, and in denying to others this ines- 

 timable advantage, would, in Corporal Trim's notions, " be 

 putting one sadly over the head of another." I think so too. — 

 Charles Waterton. Walton Hall, November 5. 1835. 



[Since our refusing, in VIII. 516., a long treatise on this 

 subject, by the Rev. Mr. Morris, which he had sent to us, we 

 have received from him the following in substitution.] 



Touching the Question whether Birds oil their Plumage, 

 or not. [VIII. 375. note*, 514, 515. 637.; IX. 158.] — 

 " The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill." — As far 

 as my knowledge goes, I am not aware of any one in the 

 present day, except Mr. Charles Waterton, who upholds or 



