IF YOU HAD WINGS 39 



change of wing feathers, one or two dropping out 

 from each wing at a time, at long intervals apart. 



Then here is the gosling, that goes six weeks in 

 down, before it gets its first feathers, which it sheds 

 within a few weeks, in the fall. Whereas the young 

 quail is born with quills so far grown that it is able 

 to fly almost as soon as it is hatched. These are real 

 mature feathers ; but the bird is young and soon 

 outgrows these first flight feathers, so they are 

 quickly lost and new ones come. This goes on till 

 fall, several moults occurring the first summer to 

 meet the increasing weight of the little quail's grow- 

 ing body. 



I said that Nature was severe and methodical, and 

 so she is, where she needs to be, so severe that you 

 are glad, perhaps, that you are not a crow. But Na- 

 ture, like every wise mother, is severe only where 

 she needs to be. A crow's wing feathers are vastly 

 important to him. Let him then take care of them, 

 for they are the best feathers made and are put in 

 to stay a year. But a crow's tail feathers are not so 

 vastly important to him ; he could get on, if, like the 

 rabbit in the old song, he had no tail at all. 



In most birds the tail is a kind of balance or steer- 

 ing-gear, and not of equal importance with the wings. 

 Nature, consequently, seems to have attached less 

 importance to the feathers of the tail. They are not 

 so firmly set, nor are they of the same quality or kind ; 

 for, unlike the wing feathers, if a tail feather is lost 



