CHAPTER II. 



SENSATION IN FEATHERS. 



HE keenest sense of feeling through the 



medium of the plumage is indispensably 



necessary to the well-being of all the 



, feathered race. 



The feathers, it is true, in themselves, 



like several other portions of the body, 



such, for example, as the nails, claws, 



beak, and hoofs, have no real consciousness 



or actual perception of the sense of touch ; still, they are enabled 



by the nicest possible organization to convey the most delicate 



impressions to those functions of the animal economy that do feel. 



If such a wise provision of Nature did not exist, what, we 



might ask, would become of all the nimierous nocturnal birds 



which seek their food only during the dark hours of night? The 



whole tribe most indubitably would soon be killed off by striking 



themselves against the various obstacles that they necessarily 



encounter in their midnight rambles. This acute sensitiveness on 



the part of feathers to outward impressions is not, perhaps, as 



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