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For a man sitting before a cabinet of bird-skins, among

which in all probability no spring changes are to be found, to

assert that the colouring of feathers once formed is fixed and

unchangeable, is presumptuous. It may be that we have no

microscope powerful enough to show how the juices of the

bird’s body nourish and modify the delicate webbing of a tiny

feather; but “seeing is believing” and “facts are stubborn

things.”


The idea (which has been suggested) that the surface of a

feather scales off revealing the different colour below the surface,

is an ingenious one ; but it does not account for the changes due to

sickness or death, it does not explain the increase and subsequent

decrease of colour in my Weavers. A far better explanation would

be to assert that heat produced a chemical change in the colouring

of feathers ; only unhappily, if that were true, we should have

all the skins in our cabinets changing periodically from summer

to winter plumage, and back again ; which would, I think, be

somewhat of a hindrance to scientific study.


When one knows that insects exist so small that they are

barely visible to the naked eye, and yet with every delicate

joint of each limb not only supplied with muscles, tendons but

undoubtedly with blood-vessels, why should it be difficult to

believe that even the finest filaments of a bird’s feather may be

equally well nourished? If you pluck a feather from a bird’s

wing or tail the root of the shaft is by no means dry and

shrivelled, as it should be in a dead feather ; for what purpose

does moisture remain in the shaft excepting to convey vitality to

the other parts ? Is it conceivable that a dead feather would

retain its secure hold on the skin of a bird for months together?

We know that even our teeth are apt to get loose when the nerve

perishes ; and the latter are far better secured than the feathers

in the skin of a bird ; as anyone who has carelessly handled a

bird, and seen it fly away leaving all its tail feathers in his

grasp, is well aware. Depend upon it, as the hair of our head is

nourished ; as it loses lustre when we are sick ; as trial, distress,

or extreme fear will bleach it; so the feathers of birds are

nourished ; only losing their living connection with the body at

the approach of the moulting-season, when the new feathers are

pushing forward to replace them.



