JOURNAL B. A. s, (ceylon). [Vol VIL, Pi. Ill, 



NOTES ON THE MICROSCOPICAL CHARACTERIS- 

 TICS OF FEATHERS, AND THEIR PRESENT 

 ANALOGY WITH A PROBABLE 

 ABORIGINAL FORM. 



By F. Lewis, Esq. 



(Read, November 2nd, 1882.) 



No naturalist, or more probably, no ornithologist has ever 

 looked upon a feather without admiring its beautiful structure, 

 and admirable adaptation of ends to means. Here will be found 

 a maximum of strength in a minimum of weight ; adapted 

 alike, as an organ of flight, or as a means of warmth to the 

 creature that supports this exquisite structure. Colored in 

 some instances only as a means of attraction, or, in others, as 

 one of protection, and yet withal, light as proverbially, 'as a 

 feather.' 



In variety of external form, we have many, even in Ceylon 

 birds, though of course, if the examples of variation of pattern, 

 from all parts of the world were tabulated, a long and interest- 

 ing list could be made, were such necessary. My object in the 

 present Paper is of a further character, and one which requires 

 a deeper investigation than that of a mere comparison of 

 external shapes and forms. 



A feather may not inaptly be likened to a cocoanut leaf or 

 branch, as it is sometimes called. There is the shaft or quill, 

 and from it diverge other shafts which form the webs. If a breast 

 feather be pulled from some well-known bird, say a Wood- 

 pecker, we observe in the lower, or basal region, that the quill 

 supports a shaft, or, as I shall call it, a web-shaft Fig. 1 (bb) ; which, 

 in turn, towards the lower half of the feather bears a fine thread 

 like process, say one-tenth of an inch long, which I shall call the 

 sub-web-sliafi Fig. 1 (ccc). In the upper or exposed part of 

 the feather, this sub-iveb-sliaft is absent, leaving the conclusion 

 that these fine filaments are for the purpose of warmth— a con- 



