1902 Feathers: Their Structure and Uses 171 



judicious planting of such parks as Battersea has been 

 enormous. That kingfishers should breed successfully in 

 Battersea Park, and a cuckoo lay her q^% there in a 

 warbler's nest, is indeed a matter for great encouragement 

 to all bird-lovers. 



The long-eared owl hankers after spruce firs for its nest ; 

 the wood-wren requires a wood of tall oaks or timber trees 

 for its concert-room ; the nightingale loves the copse or 

 thick covert for its shelter ; the siskin clings to its favourite 

 alder ; the brambling haunts the beech ; the Dartford 

 warbler hides in the gorse ; and many species, such as the 

 goldfinch, cluster round the orchard. 



A committee of experts would have to decide what trees 

 or shrubs should be planted, and a healthy rivalry might 

 spring up and be fostered between hamlet and hamlet, 

 town and town, as to which should lay out its hedgerows, 

 its waste places, and its woods most effectively and orna- 

 mentally. The young generation that planted would live 

 to see the fruit of their labours, and England, that *"' demi- 

 paradise," would become a paradise indeed. 



Feathers : Their Structure and Uses.^ 



By Basil W. Martin, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



Birds possess a form of covering which is unlike that of 

 any other animal — namely, feathers. My object in this 

 paper is to describe their structure, modifications, and 

 some of their uses. Feathers are something akin to hairs 

 in mammals, but are infinitely more complicated and elab- 

 orate, and may be termed " complex hairs of a conical 

 form which are split up into a definite pattern." They 

 are, in truth, the most peculiar and most complicated skin 

 appendages possessed by any animal. 



There are many different kinds of feathers, but they are 

 all more or less formed on one ground-plan. A feather is 



1 The substance of a Paper read before the Hampstead Scientific Society (Nat. 

 Hist. Section) on the 9th May 1902. 



