FASCEDDAR—FEATHERS 230 
FASCEDDAR (Gaelic Fasgadair, a squeezer), the bird first 
described in English as the Arctic Gull, for which the name of 
Richardson’s SKUA has been commonly but wrongly appropriated. 
FAUVETTE, a French word especially applied by Buffon (Hist. 
Nat. Ois. v. p. 117) to what is now known to be the female of the 
Orphean WARBLER, Sylvia orphea, and with some qualification to 
several other allied species. In 1831 Rennie in his edition of 
Montagu’s Ornithological Dictionary (p. 176) tried to make it the 
English name of what had hitherto and since been known as the 
Garden-WARBLER, 8. salicaria or hortensis. 
FEATHER-POKE (i.e. pocket or bag of feathers) a common 
and not inappropriate name of the nest of the Long-tailed Trr- 
MOUSE, whence it has been transferred to the builder. 
FEATHERS, like CLAWS, spurs, and hairs, are horny products 
of the epidermal cells of the skin, and may consist of the following 
parts :—(1) a Barrel or calamus ; (2) a principal Shaft or rhachis ; 
(3) an AFTERSHAFT or hyporhachis ; (4) Barbs or rami ; (5) Barbules 
or radii; and (6) Barbicels or cilia, some of which last may end in 
Hooklets or hamuli. The calamus, together with the rhachis, is 
often called the main stem, quill, or scapus, while the rami, radii, 
and cilia compose the inner and outer web, vane, or vevillum of the 
feather. 
(1) The calamus is hollow and transparent: its base is the 
umbilicus inferior, whence a series of colourless horny “caps”?! 
extends to the umbiliciform pit or wmbilicus superior, which marks 
the point of junction with the rhachis and hyporhachis. 
(2) The rhachis is opaque, filled with a pithy substance, and 
roughly quadrangular in transverse section, with a longitudinal 
furrow along its inner surface, or that which is towards the body. 
(3) The hyporhachis is, according to its development and posi- 
tion, the “ventral” counterpart of the rhachis, and may bear rami 
and radii, though no cilia; but it varies considerably in different 
birds. For reasons presently to be given, it is probably not a 
primitive feature but one acquired secondarily ; while its absence 
in many forms is certainly due to reduction. 
(4) The rami or barbs consist each of a slender lamella, the thin 
end of which is turned toward the body, while its upper. margin is 
thicker and rounded. The lamelle of the outer web though shorter 
are higher and stronger than those of the inner web. Their number 
of course depends chiefly on the length of the whole feather: on 
of the Mediterranean basin, a little bird that builds one of the most remarkable 
nests known. 
1 This series of ‘‘caps” has no name in English. In German it is known as 
die Seeie, that is, the ‘‘soul]” of the feather. 
