Identifier: birditsformfunct07beeb (find matches)
Title: The bird, its form and function
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Beebe, William, 1877-1962
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: New York : Henry Holt
Contributing Library: Internet Archive
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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hile, as we have seen,birds excel in the power of seeing, and, correlated withthis, possess an unparalleled array of colours upon thebody. There are many ways in which the body or its feathersare adapted to aid the bird in some special way. Forexample, the Puff-back Shrike of Africa has a habit ofsuddenly puffing out and erecting a patch of long, loose,white feathers on its back, giving the appearance of alarge powder-puff, an act so startling and unexpectedbeing well calculated to make any attacking hawk orother bird hesitate. The general texture of the body feathers is usuallyan accurate index to the birds power of flight. Althoughthe feathers of the breast and back are never as compactor as stiff as those of the wings and tail, yet in birds ofgood flight their barbs are quite firmly connected. In a 288 The Bird small African bird, called from its habits the Rock-jumper,the wings are so small that the power of flight is almostnil, and we find an interesting corollary in the plumage,
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Fig. 228.—Cassowary, showing the loose plumage of a flightless bird. (Sanborn,photographer. Courtesy of N. Y. Zoological Society.) which is so loose and fluffy that it blows about in theleast wind. In the ostrich and rhea this down-like char-acter is still more noticeable and extends even to thefeathers of the wings and tail. The extreme is to be found The Body of a Bird 289 in the apteryx and emeu (Fig. 23). Compare a featherof the latter with one of a condor and the difference isremarkable. So unfeatherlike is the emeus plume andso loose are its barbs that it brings to mind the much-divided leaflets of an Acacia. The plumage of the snake-bird is inexplicable. Thisbird is so emphatically aquatic that we would expecta dense, compact covering of the body; but in realityit more nearly resembles hair or fur, soaking through soquickly and thoroughly that, after immersion for sometime, the bird becomes waterlogged and has to hangitself out to dry by seeking some sunlit perch, openingwide

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