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every phcase of variety imaginable ; but their plumage never accpiires 
the appearance of hair. Canaries are to be met with in as many 
plumages as a Euff ; but their feathers always remain feathers, and 
nothing else. 
I can hardly think that the removal of the barbules, whether 
shed naturally or not, is enough to account for the tawny colour. 
If the tips of a growing feather of some normal bird bo 
removed, the base of which is of a different colour, a change 
is given to the bird’s aspect; but nothing of this kind has 
taken place in the “hairy” Moorhen. Its feathers have not 
been shortened: they have been, so to speak, macerated; having 
lost not only their barbules, but the soft substance, as it were, of 
the whole vane of each feather, and with this substance has gone 
a great deal of the colouring matter. That these Moorhens are 
suffering from disease in some form I feel sure, — rare as disease, 
which is not traceable to some cause, is among Water-birds in a 
wild state, — but whether they are hatclmd with this disease, which 
may be only a cutaneous one, preventing their moult, or whether 
their not moulting aggravates or originates it, it is impossible to say. 
On the other hand, most of the examples certainly have a fairly 
healthy appearance ; and IMr. Stevenson, who examined the body of 
his, says it showed no signs of anything wrong. The question 
therefore must remain an open one for the present. 
Hawks, Gulls, and other birds may sometimes be found in which 
a few of the wing or tail feathers liave assumed a hairlike character, 
and even— as in the case of a Parra (a bird which bears considerable 
resemblance to a Moorhen) kindly lent me by Professor Newton — 
a great portion of the body feathers. These cases are, in a degree, 
like the Moorhen under consideration; but only in a degree; for in 
the Moorhen the peculiarity extends over the whole body. The 
‘ hairy ” Moorhen bears a resemblance to the breed of fowls called 
Silky Fowls, and to the Apteryx and the Cassowary. The back 
of an Apteryx has a rough feeling, if stroked; and the feathers are 
attenuated and partially destitute of barbules at the end. In most 
of these Moorhens there is one peculiarity noticeable, and that 
is, the presence of from six to twelve transverse bars on the greater 
wing-coverts, which have the appearance of being impressed or 
indented, and which seem to be caused, not so much by the 
absence of colour, as by the extreme thinness of the barbs, — a 
