A BIRD’S OUTER WRAP. 35 
tion she may shadow certain epochs in the bird’s great 
past, but writing upon top of writing may make the 
old manuscript hard to read. 
Here, in the downy young of some species that are 
now water or shore haunters purely, the little coat is 
striped longitudinally as if the race had once been 
grass hunters, as the grouses and partridges are yet; 
and there among some that are more terrestrial now and 
slightly striped as adults is the solid-colored downy 
youngster that tells of a watery past. (See cut of 
land rails.) 
Mottled feathers on the young where the old birds 
are now solid-colored shadow a time when they flat- 
tened themselves upon the pebbly beach, perhaps to 
escape discovery; and the drabbish grays hint of 
dead-grass hiding. The brown chestnuts in the adult, 
as in the quail and ruffed grouse, tell of a long ances- 
try among the dead leaves under deciduous trees. 
Peculiar corklike and black mottlings, especially on 
the back, are signs of a habit of tree-trunk climbing, 
as upon the brown creeper, or at least of rough bark, 
as a back-ground for the setting, as in the owls. 
All these are tinged with the very emotions of the 
creature: the fear of the enemy that flew above, or 
the caution of the prey that crouched beneath. 
More than this. Doubtless for the sake of ex- 
pressing more, Nature has stained, with pigments of 
brighter hues, the bird’s outer wrap, tinting it here 
and leaving it untouched there, as if with a painter’s 
art, and burnishing, carving, and grating it here, and 
leaving it untouched there, as if with a graver’s skill; 
