THe Bay of he Band 
The necessity for the moult entails many risks, 
for it exposes the bird to peculiar dangers; yet no 
single bird is abandoned during this period, none left 
without away of escape. The geese, as we have seen, 
moult most rapidly and hence are most helpless, but 
there are few of their enemies that they cannot 
avoid by keeping to the water and grassy marshes; 
the hawks, that hunt by wing, moult so slowly that 
they do not feel a loss of power; while such birds as 
the quail and grouse, that always depend in part for 
protection upon the blending of their colors with the 
colors of their environment, seem especially so pro- 
tected during the moulting season. A grouse blotched 
with light patches, where the dark-tipped feathers 
have fallen away, may so melt into the mottled color 
scheme of its background as to escape the sharpest 
eye. 
Such a rapid, wholesale moult as in the case of the 
geese would be fatal to land birds. Instead, their 
primaries, or large wing feathers, drop out one or two 
at a time and symmetrically from the two wings. 
Oftentimes it is the two inner primaries that go first, 
then the others following one at a time, the outer- 
most last. This order varies, as in the kingfisher. 
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