30 love's MEINIE. 



in beautiful order. They are fur, so structurally 

 placed as to imply, and submit to, the perpetually 

 swift forward motion. In fact, I have no doubt the 

 Darwinian theory on the subject is that the feathers 

 of birds once stuck up all erect, like the bristles of 

 a brush, and have only been blown flat by continual 

 flying. 



Nay, we might even sufficiently represent the 

 general manner of conclusion in the Darwinian 

 system by the statement that if you fasten a hair- 

 brush to a mill-wheel, with the handle forward, so as 

 to develop itself into a neck by moving always in 

 the same direction, and within continual hearing of a 

 steam-whistle, after a certain number of revolutions 

 the hair-brush will fall in love with the whistle ; they 

 will marry, lay an egg, and the produce will be a 

 nightingale. 



30. Whether, however, a hog's bristle can turn 

 into a feather or not, it is vital that you should 

 know the present difference between them. 



The scientific people will tell you that a feather is 

 composed of three parts — the down, the laminae, and 

 the shaft. 



But the common-sense method of stating the 

 matter is that a feather is composed of two parts, 

 a shaft with lateral filaments. For the greater part 

 of the shaft's length, these filaments are strong and 



