VOL. LX.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 53 



others extract the entrails first ; the feeble scarce-resisting efforts and extreme 

 terror of the prostrate bird, the exulting audacity and triumph of the victorious 

 one, if properly managed, create a fine contrast. Picking, stretching, feeding, 

 fear, surprise, and fighting, atibrd peculiar and striking attitudes. Mr. K. fears 

 the word attitude does not sufficiently express his idea; he means the particular 

 positions of the legs, wings, head, body, the manner of the feathers, and in 

 general whatever contributes to express and mark a particular action and passion 

 of the bird. Thus, in surprise attended with fear, the legs are extended, the 

 body leans forward out of the equilibrium, supported almost on the toes, the 

 wings are half expanded, the bill turned to one side, the top, if crested, spread, 

 and the feathers, particularly those of the neck, standing perpendicular to the 

 skin. When any part is not made to co-operate in the expression, we not only 

 lose the additional strength which the proper action of that part would have 

 given to the general expression, but, what is worse, the position of such defi- 

 cient parts may convey an idea directly contrary to that general expression, and 

 so make the whole unnatural, contradictory, and ridiculous. It is not unfre- 

 quent to see this absurdity in a degree that at once surprises and offends a judi- 

 cious observer. Birds put in such positions as are intended to express the strongest 

 emotions and passions, with their feathers perfectly smooth and unaffected, 

 " Rage with unruffled plumes and fear with folded wings:" 



and this absurdity is the more striking, and therefore the less excuseable, as the 

 action of the wings and feathers are more intelligible and expressive than those 

 of any other parts in birds. Great attention should always be had to the poise 

 of the body; in such positions as a live bird may be supposed to continue some 

 time in, we must take care that the body appears in equilibrium ; on the contrary, 

 in fighting and other violent actions, where a forceable motion is to be given, 

 the appearance of equilibrium must be as carefully avoided, for it always conveys 

 the idea of stillness, as do the legs when placed by each other, and in the same 

 straight direction, which they should seldom if ever be in. Bending, advancing, 

 or retiring, one leg a little more than the other, not only gives a more graceful 

 but a more lively and active appearance; audit is observable that living birds, 

 standing on a plain surface, almost always turn the foot of the leg on that side 

 to which they are looking in the same lateral direction with the .head. Mr. K. 

 cannot help observing here one fault very common with most preservers; that is, 

 the stretching the legs of their birds down so as to bring the thigh almost per- 

 pendicular, which not only gives the bird an ungraceful but an unnatural appear- 

 ance; for we seldom or never observe this in living birds, except in some parti- 

 cular species. 



Birds appear to great advantage when picking their feathers ; the tail is then 

 expanded, the wing on that side to which the bill is turned lifted up, the other 



