WHY DID THE BIRDS PUT ON SOFT RAIMENT? 17 
Heat is power; we know that. It is at present 
the source of all energy, we know that, and we list 
our doors, double our windows that we may preserve 
it when we need it. We clothe ourselves in flannels 
and heavy outer coats that we may live by it, and 
jacket the steam pipes and boilers of our locomotives 
that we may more economically move by it. 
Nature having a good boiler now proposes to 
jacket it to prevent 
loss by radiation, and 
hence the mission of 
fur and feathers, as 
seen in the toes 
of arctic birds, be- 
ing feathered to the 
claws. This is also 
the meaning of the 
dense downs of the 
water birds. 
It is not likely, hi 
however, that the ai 
bird was clothed 
previous to its show 
of extra energy. Na- 
ture’s charity is the 
best, and she gives 
only in the line of our needs, and usually at their 
promptings. Feathers were not necessary to flight, 
as we have seen, but they greatly advanced it. ‘“Un- 
to him that hath it shall be given” is a law of Nature 
as well as Revelation, and in preserving the bird’s 



i Ni jj 
Foot of snowy owl. 
