Feathers 41 
same channel perforates both and the nutriment pith 
which supplies the down traverses the hollow quill of 
the succeeding feather. <A bird’s swaddling-clothes and 
his first full dress are cut from the same piece. But when 
these perfect feathers reach full size, the aperture at the 
base closes, all blood-supply is cut off, and the feather at 
the commencement of its usefulness becomes a dead 
thing. There is no vital connection between the feathers 
of all the following moults. Each is separate, the papilla 
or feather-cells reawakening to new activity every time 
the process occurs. So when a bird’s wing is clipped, no 
pain is felt, any more than when a person’s hair is cut. 
Such feathers are of course not renewed until the succeed- 
ing moult. If a feather in a living bird be pulled out, 
it will be replaced immediately by another, and this will 
be repeated as often as the feather is removed. 
In cassowaries, each moult is advertised by dangling 
streamers of the old plumage still attached to the tips 
of the incoming feathers, but this connection is not a 
living one, the adult feathers being as lifeless as those of 
other birds. As powerful savages often exhibit very 
childlike traits, so these great birds are absurdly marked 
with what, in other species, are sure signs of recent chick- 
hood. 
The changing of plumage of the Brown Pelican is well 
shown by the illustrations. The naked young (Tig. 18) 
become covered with papille (Fig. 10) which soon burst 
into a coating of the softest white down (Fig. 36); this 
in turn gives place to the juvenile plumage of gray, the 
features of the wings and shoulders appearing first (Fig. 
