102 BIRDS. 



the plumage of the parents and that of the young bird, as 

 well as the broader questions of the origin, development, 

 and shedding of feathers, there is no space to treat, further 

 than to point out that the young of birds in which the 

 two sexes differ little in plumage themselves resemble the 

 parents; the rest follow, broadly speaking, the colouring 

 of the adult female. The brief hints given in the follow- 

 ing pages for identification have reference to the adult 

 male, in either breeding or winter plumage, according to 

 the season at which he is most conspicuous in these islands. 

 For the transitional plumage, as for that of the female and 

 young, I had no space. Before quitting the subject, how- 

 ever, there is another point of interest about these feathers 

 which cannot fail to strike the most casual observer of 

 bird-life, and that is the marvellous way in which they 

 resist water or shot, the former more especially. The 

 smallest bird shields with thatch -like back her precious 

 eggs from the rains or snows of April without danger to 

 herself; and still more remarkable is the imperviousness 

 of waterfowl. Though birds unquestionably preen their 

 feathers with their own oil, yet wildfowlers know well that 

 the great secret of this waterproofing lies not wholly in 

 the action of the oil, but rather in some muscular action 

 of the bird itself, in proof of which they can show that 

 dead or badly wounded fowl are in a very few moments 

 damaged by the water, and even one wing which is broken 

 will take in water to the detriment of the feathers, while 

 the rest of the bird is yet healthy and dry. 



Evidence of nature's wonderful workmanship is nowhere 

 more apparent than in the bill of birds, whether we con- 

 Bin sider the curved bill of the creepers, the chisel 

 of the woodpeckers, the scissors of the cross- 

 bill, the serrated mandibles of the fish-eating goosander, 

 the sensitive sucker of the woodcock, the bristles on the 

 bill of the moth-hunting nightjar, or the absence of open 

 nostrils on that of the plunging gannet. 



The foot has four toes, normally, instead of our five. 



