EAGLE. 
393 
turning him upon his belly, and examining the 
feathers of his back, they produced a brown dust, 
the colour of the feathers there. This dust was not 
in small quantities; for, upon striking his breast, 
the yellow powder flew about in greater quantity 
than from a hair-dressers powder puff. The feathers 
of the belly and breast, which were of a gold colour, 
did not appear to have any thing extraordinary in 
their formation; but the large feathers in the shoul- 
der and w ings seemed apparently to be fine tubes, 
which, upon pressure, scattered this dust upon the 
finer part of the feather ; but this was brown, the 
colour of the feathers of the back. Upon the side 
of the wing, the ribs, or hard part of the feather, 
seemed to be bare, as if worn, or I rather think 
were renewing themselves, having before failed in 
their functions. 
What is the reason of this extraordinary pro- 
vision of nature is not in my power to determine. 
As it is an unusual one, it is probably meant for a 
defence against the climate, in favour of those birds 
which live in those almost inaccessible heights of a 
country doomed even in its lower parts to several 
months of excessive rain. The pigeons we saw upon 
Lamalmon had not this dust in their feathers, nor 
had the quails ; from which I guess these to be 
strangers, or birds of passage, that had no need of 
this provision, created for the wants of the indige- 
nous, such as this eagle is, for he is unknown in the 
low country. That same day I shot a heron, in no- 
thing different from ours, only that he was smaller 
