CHAPTER II. 



SENSATION IN FEATHERS. 



HE keenest sense of feeling through the 

 medium of the plumage is indispensably 

 necessary to the well-being of all the 

 feathered race. 



The feathers, it is true, in themselves, 

 like several other portions of the body, 

 such, for example, as the nails, claws, 

 beak, and hoofs, have no real consciousness 



or actual perception of the sense of touch ; still, they are enabled 

 by the nicest possible organization to 'convey the most delicate 

 impressions to those functions of the animal economy that do feel. 

 If such a wise provision of Nature did not exist, what, we 

 might ask, would become of -all the numerous nocturnal birds 

 which seek their food only during the dark hours of night? The 

 whole tribe most indubitably would soon be killed off by striking 

 themselves against the various obstacles that they necessarily 

 encounter in their midnight rambles. This acute sensitiveness on 



the part of feathers to outward impressions is not, perhaps, as 



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