TO SHOW HOW MUCH WE KNOW 185 
feathers that are the most beautiful, for they are 
so very long—the two longest are much longer than 
those in a pheasant’s tail—but there are some feathers 
which begin on the back and lap softly round the 
sides, one a little way off from the other, so that you 
see their pretty shapes, and these are almost as beauti- 
ful, although they are ever so much shorter. But 
now there is something funny about those long 
feathers, which I have called the tail-feathers, and 
that is, that they are not really tail-feathers at all. 
They look as if they were, but rea//y they are 
feathers which go over the tail and cover it up, 
so that the rea/ tail is underneath them. It is like 
that—though I am sure you never knew it—with 
the peacock; those beautiful, long feathers which 
we call the tail are not really the tail, and you 
will see that, directly, if you watch a peacock when 
he spreads them out, for, as soon as he does, you 
will see the real tail underneath, which is nothing 
very particular to look at. Still, in both these 
birds the long feathers look so like the real tail 
that we may very well call them the tail-feathers, 
and we can always explain about it afterwards, to 
show how much we know. And, do you know, 
these beautiful, long, golden-green feathers of the 
Quezal, which we are going to call the tail-feathers, 
although we know very well they are not, were so 
