THE BEARD OF MAN. 285 



examined, seemed to be carried out by facts. It was 

 true that the first growth of a beard is soft and silky. 

 It was equally true that when a man's beard is of two 

 or three days' growth after shaving, it is coarse and 

 harsh, and if the beard be a dark and stiff one, looks 

 very much like a ragged blacking brush. But, when 

 the beard has grown to the length which it would have 

 attained if its wearer had never shaved, it will be just 

 as soft and silky as if it ' never had known the barber's 

 shears.' 



If this be the case with the permanent hairs of 

 the human beard, which are analogous to those of 

 the horse's mane, much more so must it hold good 

 with the deciduous hairs of the horse's body. We 

 find exactly the same in birds, the perfection of whose 

 plumage after moulting is not in the least marred by 

 injuries done to the feathers before the moult. 



Boys who for the first time own a magpie or a 

 jackdaw, generally discover this fact by experience. 

 As soon as they obtain possession of their bird they 

 clip its wings, and are under the impression that they 

 have prevented it from flying during the remainder 

 of its life. But, unless the boy has managed, as he 

 ought to do, to attach his bird to himself so thoroughly 

 that it does not wish to leave him, he will find that 

 after the moult is complete, the bird regains the 

 whole of his plumage, and can fly as well as ever. 



