SOME URBAN DEGENERATES 301 



the compliment — though as a matter of fact a 

 Pelican is a very poor fighter for its size, and I have 

 known of two instances in which one of these 

 awkward birds was killed by a Swan. 



The plumage of birds is not only a good defence 

 against injury, but against weather, the feathering 

 of many land-birds, even, throwing off water'almost 

 as well as'that of most waterfowl ; but even among 

 wild birds, if they are Uving under easy conditions, 

 as with birds in Lo^dpn, one may observe a strong 

 tendency to degeneration in plumage in some cases. 

 Sparrows with very faulty plumage and broken 

 tails are common in our town parks nowadays ; I 

 have also seen at least two Moorhens with quills 

 broken off short, and several Black-headed Gulls 

 whose plumage was not properly waterproof. 



Rigorous climatic conditions would of course 

 eliminate such birds, to say nothing of enemies ; 

 but when birds definitely make beasts of themselves 

 by losing the power of flight and running about on 

 the ground, the state of the plumage does not seem to 

 matter, and practically all such birds have degenerate 

 loose-webbed plumage, the precise degree of de- 

 generacy corresponding pretty closely to the degree 

 of degenerate deviation from the normal bird type ; 

 thus, the plumage is most degenerate in the Cas- 

 sowaries and Emus, which have the most aborted 

 wings, less so in the Ostrich, and still less in the 

 Rheas, in which the wings are almost like those of 

 normal birds, although soft-quilled. The flightless 

 Rails and Parrot show much less marked deviation, 



