198 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June 24. 
the beam, and are found wanting. But amongst bad tilings, 
heavy feathers are the worst. Worn-out stumps, thrown off 
just before moulting, will hardly fetch the price of so many 
sticks and chips : while precious is the impalpable substance 
of a mass of eider-down (which the French ludicrously call 
ed radon), and still more so, the—not plumes, but—fragments 
of cloud, which the unsightly Marabou Crane yields for the 
adornment of our fair and wealthy dames. 
But use before show is the wisest order of precedence; 
and a good feather-bed is a truly British comfort, of older 
date than man}' of our modem luxuries in the furniture 
department. Thus from the 1st vol. of Norfolk Archaeology 
we learn, that in wills made prior to lf)20, beds and chattels 
of all descriptions are detailed with a paiuful minuteness, 
shewing the great value of such things in those times. 
Among the extracts given, is this from the will of Margaret 
Grey, Little Walsingham, widow, 1515 :—“ I will Johan 
Grey, my doughter, have 1 federbedd, natt of the werst, as 
it standith; ij peyer of honeste shets, Ac.” Again, Thomas 
Harpley, of Garbeysthorpe, a.d. 1557, bequeaths “ Item, to 
Richard Harpley my son, (evidently a favourite legatee), 
nuj bcste father bedde, a great hotclie callyd an arke, my best 
brasse pott, my best brasse panne, the best table, Ac. Ac.” 
An old notion is, that pigeon’s feathers should not enter into 
the composition of beds, because they cause the person 
whose fate it is to expire thereon, to die hard. 
Most Englishmen will not at first take kindly to any bed, 
except one made of feathers; and it must be confessed 
they are the very thing for our climate. But a short ex¬ 
perience of the French piles of mattrasses, filled with wool, 
will shew that they, too, have their merits. The German 
plan of sleeping under what may be called a feather-bed of 
eider-down, is delicious, if you can lie quiet all night; but it 
is terrible to wake after your first sleep, shaking with cold, 
and to have to get out to replace your upper-bed. I remem¬ 
ber to have had, years ago, in the south of Italy, many 
wholesome and refreshing nights' rest on beds filled with 
the husk-leaves of Indian corn. The dried husks were put 
into coarse canvass ticks, having two open slits towards each 
side, just where you would make the cut for the wing, if the 
feather-bed were a plump fowl, or in the region of the air 
openings on the front of a violin. AVhenthe bed was made, 
the eamariere or camariera (for male bed-makers are more com¬ 
mon there than female), just thrust his or her arms through 
the two slits, gave the contents of the husk-bag a thorough 
stir up, very like shaking a heap of shavings, and so re¬ 
placed the sheets and coverlid. A bed of straw is spoken of 
in England as the extremity of misfortune ; but while in the 
enjoyment of youth and daily exercise, I found a husk-bed 
in place of a feather-bed to be no hardship whatever. But 
Indian corn will never thrive here, while geese, ducks, and 
chickens are an ancient staple. In place, therefore, of im¬ 
porting husks for beds, it will be as well to warn country 
housekeepers against all waste of feathers, and to remind 
them that the feather-bag, like the money-box, may become 
the accumulated treasure formed by daily savings. 
The usual method in preparing feathers for the purpose 
of stuffing beds, is to separate the smaller from the quill 
feathers into different thick linen bags. They are then kept 
in a dry place; and where there is an opportunity, the bags 
should be placed in a brick-oven after it has cooled suffi¬ 
ciently not to singe the feathers. This must be repeated 
for several weeks, in order to prevent their acquiring any 
unpleasant smell. When well dried, they are put into a 
large tub, close to which another tub is placed to pick them 
into. Those that have quills, should be clipped off with 
scissors ; the smaller ones also require to have the nibs cut 
out. Goose feathers are by far the best for beds, but ducks’ 
answer equally well for bolsters and pillows. Turkeys’ and 
chickens’ feathers, when dressed in the same manner, will 
make good common or second-rate beds. 
A full-sized bordered bed requires 50 lbs. of feathers ; a 
bolster to match 10 lbs.; and a pair of pillows to the same 
I 8 lbs. The tick should be prepared by rubbing the inside 
1 all over with either bees-wax or hard brown soap ; the latter 
substance is preferable. It is desirable that beds should be 
' emptied every two or three years upon a clean boarded floor, 
and the feathers gently beaten with a small stick. They 
1 are then put into a large agricultural sieve, and rubbed 
lightly between the hands, till the dust is all removed, when 
they may be returned to the tick again. The feathers of 
wild fowl, i. e., shot birds, are not commonly used for beds, 
but do exceedingly well for cushions, and such like. Boor 
Richard, were he the writer, would here remind you that 
“ As you make your bed, so you must lie.” 
From feathers to lie upon, we might skip to feathers to 
eat; for it is a strange fact that feathers arc eaten, and 
that by birds themselves. The creatures are occasionally 
seized with what might be called, in learned language, a 
plumivorous disease, which is very apt to become a chronic 
malady. At the Surrey Zoological Gardens there were, and 
may still be, some Macaws, which sat on their perches as 
naked as a fowl dressed for the spit, except on the portions 
of their person which they could not reach. I had often 
seen others of the parrot tribe in a partial state of nudity, 
but never any so thoroughly devoid of clothing as these. 
As fast as the stumps of new feathers appeared, out they 
stripped them. It was like the irresistible propensity which 
some unhappy maniacs feel to divest themselves of every 
article of dress. The keepers were ignorant of the exciting 
cause, and unable either to check or cure them. Various 
things are advised to be withheld or given to parrots in 
whom tlris tendency is feared, but nothing has been found 
effectual. Their close confinement would be sufficient to 
derange the nervous system of such active, excitable crea¬ 
tures ; and a half-year’s run in their native home, or what 
comes nearest to it, would be the most likely mode of giving 
their thoughts and their bills some other direction. 
When fowls are affected with this strange appetite, it is 
not exercised upon themselves, but upon each other. A 
favourite tit-bit with Polish hens is the top-knot of their 
lord; and the second course, i.e., the new crop of half-grown 
feathers, is more relished than the first. I was once intro¬ 
duced to the acquaintance of a Polish cock who had had his 
head-dress devoured/our times by his ladies. He was at that 
time intended by his owner to be in solitary confinement, 
till his feathers should be once more reproduced; but the 
cottager’s wife, in whose charge this Polish party were, pity¬ 
ing either the cavalier or his dulcineas, had allowed an expe- 
mental interview, and they were at it again. I suggested, 
as a last hope, that the cock should wear a comfortable elastic 
nightcap, well tied under his chin, till the rightful honours 
of his crown were restored to him. 
The growth of feathers is a remarkable thing to watch, 
and can be best done in those birds where the process is 
rapid. The relation of the first down to the feather which 
succeeds it, is also curious to trace. “ Have you ever no¬ 
ticed,” writes a valued friend (II. II.), “during the moulting 
of fowls, that the young cases containing the feathers some¬ 
times make their appearance doubled down at the ends ? 
; This was quite new to me this year, when I observed, on 
■ the heads of several half-grown Polish, that the incipient 
feathers were doubled back nearly a quarter-of-an-incli, and 
I only pushed through the skin with a sharp struggle. It is 
, a singular thing, that when hens, for it is not the case with 
the cocks, begin to moult early in the season, say about the 
beginning of August, they lay a certain number of eggs, and 
then change half their feathers again as soon as the end of 
October or the beginning of November. Now it appears so 
soon for the young feathers (especially those of the tail) to 
be cast off; and seems to us, who are ignorant of many of 
nature’s doings, to be (as in Waterton’s fact of the Mallard) 
useless and unnecessary. Had we the means of further 
investigation, we should probably find it not so.” 
[Mr. Yarrell has supplied an admirable paper on the growth 
of feathers to the Trans. Zool. Soc.. Land., vol. i., p. 13. The 
transcription of a few sentences will shew the reader how 
much more there is in the subject than he may at first 
imagine.] 
“ A perfect feather presents many points of interest, if we 
consider its various parts, form, colour, strength, lightness, 
durability, and the peculiar manner in which the fibres of 
the web lock in with each other to afford continuity of 
surface. The accessory plume also requires to be noticed. 
This is usually a small downy tuft, which not only assumes 
a very different character in the feathers of different species, 
but is even very dissimilar in the feathers of different parts 
of the body of the same bird. The accessory plume is 
situated at the distal end of the quill, at the aperture 
through which the shaft and its lateral fibres have passed 
