Birds oiling their Feathers. 637 



Neottia spiralis Swz. (Spirdnthes autumnalis Richard), Sweet 

 Ladies' Traces. I found in full flower, on Aug. 28. 1385, in 

 the large sand-pits leading out of the lower road between 

 Greenwich and Woolwich. This is the first time, as far as 

 I am able to say, that it has been met with in the immediate 

 vicinity of London. Mr. Sowerby notices it, in his English 

 Botany, as one of the rarer species of British plants. — Daniel 

 Cooper. 82. Blackfriars Road. 



Art. VI. Retrospective Criticism. 



On Birds dressing their Feathers with Matter secerned from 

 a Gland. (375. note*, 514, 515.) — In p. 515. there are 

 one or two arguments of Mr. Waterton's, which I will trou- 

 ble you with a few lines in reply to. I do not deny (I never 

 did) that the thrush and robin have an oil gland *; they may 

 be seen, before a shower of rain, anointing their feathers with 

 its contents ; and I doubt not but that, if they were, under 

 these circumstances, to fall into water, they would receive as 

 little damage (or nearly so), as to their feathers, as the dipper; 

 but the dipper, being an aquatic bird, is constantly ready for 

 his "sub-aquatic promenade," and, probably, has therefore 

 a greater supply of the oil than land birds, who only re- 

 quire it occasionally. Neither do I attach any importance 

 whatever to Mr. Waterton's being able, as he says, to make 

 an equally good, or better, specimen of a bird steeped for a 

 whole day in water, as of one only fresh killed ; for it matters 

 not at all whether he be able, by some chemical or other 

 tedious process, to restore the pristine beauty of the bird ; 

 but the force of my argument is this, and I repeat it : soak a 

 thrush or robin but a few minutes in the water ; soak a dipper 

 for an hour or more ; lay them both in the sun to dry, side 

 by side ; and, when they are dry, what a contrast will there 

 not be ! The one, I will venture to say, will be " unscathed, 

 unharmed ; " the other will present a miserable clogged ap- 

 pearance, " unlike, oh, how unlike !" its former self. Now, 

 what is the natural inference to be drawn from this fact ? for 

 fact, I again repeat, it is : I leave it to others to judge. But 

 11 'tis strange, 'tis passing strange, that any will allow their 

 eyes to be so blinded by prejudice as to resist what can 

 almost be demonstrated, more especially when they them- 

 selves confess that they have no other theory to advance." — 

 Francis Orpen Morris. 



* By the way, I should feel obliged by any of your correspondents in- 

 forming me what birds are without the oil gland, or whether any are 

 entirely devoid of it ; for, certainly, some have it much less evidently deve- 

 loped than others. 



