on a moot question.



81



time. Now I really cannot see why a bird assuming its nuptial

dress for the first time, provided that it only passes through the usual

partial moult, should be regarded as exceptional ; but the statement

that the feathers are in quill, indicating a moult, in this and the other

two classes which he mentions certainly does not correspond with

my own experience or that of the late Dr. Stark and various other

field-naturalists.


With regard to what Dr. Van Someren says about my P. oryx

commencing the change rather late and dying shortly afterwards, he

has failed to observe that the time of change was not exceptional but

habitual, and that if the bird had not happened to die during the

change its transitional plumage would not have been preserved. To

assume, because the change from one plumage to the other was slow,

that the bird swallowed all the feathers which it moulted out, is

rather far-fetched; moreover, my question—“ What becomes of the

moulted feathers?” in my article published in 1916 refers to the

Indigo Finch, not to the species of Pyromelana, which are admitted

to pass through a partial moult, so that one does see a few of the

small feathers dropped from the rump and flanks in order that they

may be replaced by tbe far larger, softer and more ornamental

plumes which greatly add to the charm of its nuptial dress ; but at

this season I have never come across quill-feathers, although at the

autumn moult the latter, on account of their size, are very conspicuous.


I occasionally saw one of my Hangnests, after playing with a

moulted feather for a considerable time, swallow it; but as a general

rule when it had been passed in and out of its bill, had been held

under the foot and some of the barbs torn out, it was dropped on the

floor. Of course nobody could seriously suggest that any bird would

devour the whole of its shed plumage, even if it were possible for it

to choke down its quill-feathers, and as the latter are those most

noticeable after a moult I think that point need not trouble us.


Of course my observations may have been faulty: I do not

claim infallibility any more than others ; but so many have come to

the same conclusion as myself, that I feel it to be only just that the

question should be thoroughly studied by many unbiassed workers

before it is accepted as a fact that a perfected feather is physio¬

logically dead.



