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JUNIOR AUDUBON WORK 

 For Teachers and Pupils 



Exercise XXV. Correlated Studies: Reading and Drawing. 

 Feathers, Part II 



Continuing our study of a bird's plumage, let us devote attention in this 

 exercise to the coloring and markings of feathers. As we have already seen, 

 feathers differ in structure according to their location and use. They differ 

 also in color and pattern according to their location and wear, for feathers, 

 like clothes, may fade and become frayed and worn. 



The first thing that the average observer notices about the plumage of 

 birds is, probably, the great variety of colors and markings apparent to the 

 eye. The rich glossy browns and blacks, brilliant blues, reds and yellows, 

 delicate flushes of color on somberly garbed birds, iridescent tints, combined 

 with an innumerable variety of markings, at once confuse and entrance the 

 eye. It is small wonder that, to beginners, the plumage of birds seems to be 

 their most important field character. How superficial this view is, however, 

 may be seen at once by inspecting a few separate feathers, especially, of highly 

 colored species. A yellow bird is found to have feathers the tips of which 

 alone are yellow, and so, of red or blue or even black birds, if the feathers are 

 contour feathers. Quill- and tail-feathers may be colored throughout. 



Markings, also, are found to be mostly confined to exposed surfaces, as if 

 Nature were economizing by using only sufficient coloring-matter (pigment) to 

 make a show where it can be seen. One would scarcely believe, if told that a 

 feather gray-white or white, except at its tip, belonged to a red or yellow or 



