BULLETIN 



NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



VOL. VII. July, 1882. No. 3. 



THE COLORS OF FEATHERS. 



B\ J. AMORV JKFFKIES. 



Feathers have been stiuHed from the earhest days of the micro- 

 scope, indeed long before the modern microscope came into 

 existence. Malpighei. Hooke and Leeiuvenhoek all wrote on the 

 subject, and not a little of our knowledge dates from their time. 

 Since then authors have constantly written on feathers and their 

 colors, until the papers on the subject may be counted by hun- 

 dreds. Accordinglv little that is new can be expected from this 

 short article, nor even a history of the literature of the subject. 

 A'ly onlv object is to give an idea, so far as is known, how the 

 colors of feathers are produced, the literature of the subject being 

 out of the track of most American ornithologists. 



Color may be the result of an}- one or more of the following 

 causes : a pigment, interference and diffraction of light in their 

 various phases, fluorescence, and phosphorescence. Of these 

 causes only three have been called upon to explain the colors of 

 feathers, the last two apparently playing no part. The fluores- 

 cence noted by Dr. Krukenberg in solutions of certain feather- 

 pigments probably plays no part, or at most an insignificant one. 

 in the colors of feathers. Pigments act by absorbing all rays of 

 light but tliose which enter into their color, that is turn them into 

 luat. 



