FEATHERS 243 
more Filoplumes arise. Their development shews them to be 
- degenerate and not primitive feathers. In most cases they are 
concealed, but not unfrequently a few elongated Filoplumes project 
beyond the feathers of the neck, as in Fringilla, Sylvia, Turdus, and 
above all in Criniger. According to Nitzsch, the delicate white 
feathers om the neck and thighs of the CORMORANT in breeding- 
plumage are comparatively little degenerated and rather specialized 
Filoplumes. 
The first clothing of the newly-hatched bird consists of more 
or fewer soft feathers, on the whole resembling the Downs of adult 
birds ; but possessing several characters which make it advisable to 
distinguish them, by the name of “ Neossoptiles” (veorads, a chick), 
from those feathers which subsequently appear, and may be called 
“Teleoptiles ” (réAcos, mature), the former being as it were the first 
generation to which others follow in constant succession (MOULT), so 
long as the bird lives. 
Neossoptiles are characterized by (1) a very short calamus, (2) 
an insignificant or ill-defined rhachis—if there be one at all, (3) 
the almost universal absence of cilia, (4) long and slender rami, and 
(5) absence of an aftershaft, except in Dromexus. 'To the combina- 
tion of these characters is due the soft or downy structure of these 
feathers. 
Teleoptiles, whether Contour-feathers or Downs, are each originally 
preceded by a Neossoptile, the base of which is in direct continuity 
with the tips of the rami of its succeeding final feather ; but, owing 
to a shortened process of development or czenogenetic conditions 
(as before described, p. 14), many, or even all Neossoptiles may 
occasionally be suppressed, so that the tips of the first feathers 
which appear are actually those of the second generation. This is 
the case with Passeres, and many of the other NipicoLa which breed 
in holes, and thus seem not to need a nestling plumage. In these 
(Passeres and Psittaci especially) the Neossoptiles, complicated 
structures as they are, grow on but a few parts—notably on the 
top of the head, the humeral and spinal tracts. Subsequently they 
appear on the extremity of the future wing and tail-quills, but 
they are very sparse on the ventral surface. In the Kingfishers 
and Woodpeckers, and probably in other PIcARL®, the Neossoptiles 
are almost wholly suppressed. On the whole, this plumage is best 
developed in the NipiruG#, and is naturally thickest in those of 
them which early take to an aquatic life; but it is thick at the 
time of hatching in Latitx, Galline, Spheniscidx, Anseres, Phent- 
copterus, Colymbo-Podicipedes, Lavo-Limicolx, Picrocleide and Grallx, as 
well as in Accipitres and Striges among the Nidicolx, while on the 
other hand in the majority of the last—even in the Pelargi, 
Herodii, and Steganopodes—it is at birth very scanty or even absent. 
Lastly, in the Megapodiidx the Neossoptiles are cast off before the 
