low poles of the roost. It is a critical experience 

 with the hen, this moulting of her feathers, and were 

 it not for the protection of the yard it might be a 

 fatal experience. Nature seems to have no hand in 

 the business at all ; if she has, then what a mess she 

 is making of it ! 



But pick up the hen, study the falling of the feath- 

 ers carefully, and lo ! here is law and order, system 

 and sequence, as if every feather were a star, every 

 quill a planet, and the old white hen the round sphere 

 of the universe. You will put her down reverently, 

 awfully, this hen that you took up with such compas- 

 sion, and you will say, " Such knowledge is too won- 

 derful for me." 



So it is, for the moult means a great deal more than 

 the mere renewal of feathers, just how much more no 

 one seems to know. This much is plain, that once 

 a year, usually after the nesting season, it seems 

 a physical necessity for most birds to renew their 

 plumage. 



We get a new suit (some of us) because our old 

 one wears out. That is the most apparent cause for 

 the new annual suit of the birds. Yet with them, as 

 with some of the favored of us humans, the feathers 



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