Gl Groken Feather 
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 bea 
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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