BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



place them in comfortable out-of-doors aviaries, 

 and you will find our own species haunting the out- 

 side of the cage for hours at a time. Or get our 

 native birds wonted to food and drinking places 

 and any species will, in time, forget its fearfulness. 



So if you wish, you may join the overcrowded 

 ranks of those who have photographed a chickadee 

 perched on a pipe or a cigarette full of seed, or who 

 can proudly exhibit a film of a warbler feeding 

 from the hand. Better than this, watch the 

 visitors at a food pan through powerful glasses at 

 close range and study the change in size of the iris, 

 or the muscular control of feathers from crest to 

 tail, or the use of the toes and beaks as tools, or 

 the shifting psychological balance of fear and 

 confidence. 



One day you will realize and become aware 

 (besides merely seeing) that birds have scales on 

 their legs and toes, and again arises, like the voice 

 of a great jungle frog, that everlasting. Why? Go 

 at it both experimentally and with books — the 

 idea of scales versus feathers. See if you can find 

 any half -scale, half -feather on birds. Get scales 

 from a lizard and a fish and try to make a feather, 

 and then take a soft feather and attempt a scale. 

 Check it all up with a good lens or a binocular 

 microscope. Then beg a dead bird from the zoo, 

 slay your neighbor's annoying parrot, or filch 

 from your sister's old hat the bird of paradise 

 which, for fear of fine and jail, she does not dare 

 to wear. How many different kinds of feathers 



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