PLUMAGE AFTER DEATH 



153 



there were small resting-places under the bank which prevented 

 their being drowned. The size of the place they were in was 

 about eight feet square, and in this small place they had not 

 only grown up, but thrived, being fully as large and heavy as 

 any other young ducks of the same age. 



In shooting water-fowl I have often been struck by the 

 fact that as soon as ever life is extinct in a bird which falls in 

 the sea or river, the plumage begins to get wet and to be 

 penetrated by the water, although as long as the bird lives 

 it remains dry and the wet runs off it. I can only account for 

 this by supposing that the bird, as long as life remains, keeps 

 his feathers in a position to throw off and prevent the water 

 from entering between them. This power is of course lost to 

 the dead bird, and the water penetrating through the outer part 

 of the feathers wets them all. This appears to be more likely 

 than that the feathers should be only kept dry by the oil 

 supplied by the bird, as the effect of this oil could not be so 

 instantaneously lost as to admit of wet as soon as the bird 

 drops dead, while if the bird be only wounded they remain dry. 



THE SYMPATHETIC MATE 



