ABOUT’ A BIRD'S UNDERWEAR. Me 
lured within easy reach. If this should be true, it 
may be that some others charm or signal to their 
mates in this way, as the fireflies do, by this sort of 
fireworks formed by the cremation of the ragged 
edges of the underwear. These things are not very 
probable, and even the phosphorescence needs con- 
firmation, but certainly here is hinted a very interest- 
ing method of changing winter flannels. 
Most birds show the presence of downs in the 
bare tracts only, and not within the feather tracts 
already noted. If then these downs be regarded as 
degenerate feathers, the bare spaces would appear to 
be more recent than the feather tracts; but if these 
downs be primitive forms of feathers, Nature may 
now be attempting to fill these “clearings” with an 
undergrowth. 
Water birds only and those close akin to them 
have these downs over the entire body. Since the 
water-haunting kinds of kingfishers (and not other 
insect-eating kinds), and the water ousel or dipper 
only among the wren-thrush forms, have these downs 
similarly arranged all over the body, it seems quite 
evident that the growth of underwear is influenced 
by environment or habit, inasmuch as these last birds 
are comparatively recent. 
The tinamous alone have the downs confined to 
the feather tracts only. 
Birds have another feature of their underwear 
worth noting. Many of the contour or body feathers 
of some show a second feather growing out of the top 
of the barrel (or_toothpick part), directly beneath the 
