Loves Meinie | Page 9

robin; but you know how unpardonably and preposterously
awkward an eagle is when he hops. When they are most of all
developed, the bird walks, runs, and digs well, but leaps badly.
27. I have no time to speak of the various forms of the ankle itself, or of
the scales of armor, more apparent than real, by which the foot and
ankle are protected. The use of this lecture is not either to describe or to
exhibit these varieties to you, but so to awaken your attention to the
real points of character, that, when you have a bird's foot to draw, you
may do so with intelligence and pleasure, knowing whether you want to
express force, grasp, or firm ground pressure, or dexterity and tact in
motion. And as the actions of the foot and the hand in man are made by
every great painter perfectly expressive of the character of mind, so the
expressions of rapacity, cruelty, or force of seizure, in the harpy, the
gryphon, and the hooked and clawed evil spirits of early religious art,
can only be felt by extreme attention to the original form.
28. And now I return to our main question, for the robin's breast to
answer, "What is a feather?" You know something about it already; that
it is composed of a quill, with its lateral filaments terminating generally,
more or less, in a point; that these extremities of the quills, lying over
each other like the tiles of a house, allow the wind and rain to pass over
them with the least possible resistance, and form a protection alike
from the heat and the cold; which, in structure much resembling the
scale-armor assumed by man for very different objects, is, in fact,
intermediate, exactly, between the fur of beasts and the scales of fishes;
having the minute division of the one, and the armor-like symmetry and
succession of the other.
29. Not merely symmetry, observe, but extreme flatness. Feathers are
smoothed down, as a field of corn by wind with rain; only the swathes
laid in beautiful order. They are fur, so structurally placed as to imply,
and submit to, the perpetually swift forward motion. In fact, I have no
doubt the Darwinian theory on the subject is that the feathers of birds
once stuck up all erect, like the bristles of a brush, and have only been

blown flat by continual flying.
Nay, we might even sufficiently represent the general manner of
conclusion in the Darwinian system by the statement that if you fasten
a hair-brush to a mill-wheel, with the handle forward, so as to develop
itself into a neck by moving always in the same direction, and within
continual hearing of a steam-whistle, after a certain number of
revolutions the hair-brush will fall in love with the whistle; they will
marry, lay an egg, and the produce will be a nightingale.
30. Whether, however, a hog's bristle can turn into a feather or not, it is
vital that you should know the present difference between them.
The scientific people will tell you that a feather is composed of three
parts--the down, the laminæ, and the shaft.
But the common-sense method of stating the matter is that a feather is
composed of two parts, a shaft with lateral filaments. For the greater
part of the shaft's length, these filaments are strong and nearly straight,
forming, by their attachment, a finely warped sail, like that of a
wind-mill. But towards the root of the feather they suddenly become
weak, and confusedly flexible, and form the close down which
immediately protects the bird's body.
To show you the typical arrangement of these parts, I choose, as I have
said, the robin; because, both in his power of flying, and in his color, he
is a moderate and balanced bird;--not turned into nothing but wings,
like a swallow, or nothing but neck and tail, like a peacock. And first
for his flying power. There is one of the long feathers of robin's wing,
and here (Fig. 1) the analysis of its form.
31. First, in pure outline (A), seen from above, it is very nearly a long
oval, but with this peculiarity, that it has, as it were, projecting
shoulders at a 1 and a 2. I merely desire you to observe this, in passing,
because one usually thinks of the contour as sweeping unbroken from
the root to the point. I have not time to-day to enter on any discussion
of the reason for it, which will appear when we examine the placing of
the wing feathers for their stroke.

Now, I hope you are getting accustomed to the general method in
which I give you the analysis of all forms--leaf, or feather, or shell, or
limb. First, the plan; then