244 



FEA THERS 



birds are hatched, so that they are born clothed in a plumage of 

 the second generation. 



There can be no doubt that the nesting habits and various 

 other circumstances are closely correlated with the condition of 

 the first plumage, and that this, taken as a Avhole, can only be 

 used as a taxonomic character with great caution, Avhile its con- 

 stituent parts, the Neossoptiles themselves, are far less adaptive 

 and therefore afford surer characters. 



The following types of Neossoptiles may be distinguished: — 

 (1) The loAvest and most primitive type is that of the Columhai, 

 and probably of various Limkolae. A newly-hatched Pigeon looks 



Feather of Nestling (Nycticorax). Magnified. 



1. Sh. Horny sheath, not wholly shed, enclosing the base of eleven rami. Natural size. 



2. Single ramus of the same, supported by a ramus of the Teleoptile. 



very naked because each of its long feathers has a bristle-like 

 appearance, being still enclosed in its sheath. When this is shed 

 the feather spreads out in form of a brush, composed of about seven 

 long and thin uniform branches, beset with very few lateral rays, 

 and all springing without any rhachis from a short cylindrical 

 portion, representing the calamus, which passes into the tips of the 

 as yet hardly begun Teleoptile. 



(2) In Ciconia, Coli/mbus, Nycticorax, Plmnicopterns,t\\(i Sjiheniscidx, 

 and in Sxda, the Neossoptile consists of a very short calamus, 

 whence spring about a dozen long and delicate rami, each of which 



