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And it was the jerk that had torn out some of the raven's tail-feathers, and left them in the jaws of the gray, old, hill fox. And it was the fox who was standing all alone, watching, with oblique eyes, the two great birds fast dissolving with every desperate, stampeding wing-beat into the hurrying cloud-wrack and the wild seascape in opposite directions.
Male: black on the head, back, wings, and tail; the belly, rump, several spots on the wings, and three outer tail-feathers, white; rose-colored breast and wing-linings; bill white and very heavy. Female: streaked brownish above and below, without any rosy color, but orange-yellow under the wings; she looks like an overgrown Sparrow with a swelled face.
Layard says: "I have often watched them, when seeking their insect prey, turn suddenly on their perch and whisk their long tails with a jerk over the bough, as if to protect them from injury." The tail is sometimes brown, and the natives have the idea that the bird changes its plumage at stated periods, and that the tail-feathers become white and brown in alternate years.
After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain. Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tail-feathers stuck in his red hair.
The scissors-tails always live in pairs, but at sunset several pairs assemble, the birds calling excitedly to each other; they then mount upwards, like rockets, to a great height in the anand, after wheeling about for a few moments, pro-cipitate themselves downwards with amazing violence in a wild zigzag, opening and shutting the long tail-feathers like a pair of shears, and producing loud whirring sounds, as of clocks being wound rapidly up, with a slight pause after each turn of the key.
Our attention was attracted to a familiar noise the cooing of doves. I moved gently under the trees, and soon put to flight several fine specimens, of a dark, ashy-blue color, with a black band across the tail-feathers, which were of a pearl-gray. I killed a couple of them; and Sumichrast, who was better placed, knocked down three others. They were quite sufficient for our dinners.
Thirdly, those characters which are mainly distinctive of each breed are in each eminently variable, for instance, the wattle and length of beak of the carrier, the shortness of that of the tumbler, and the number of tail-feathers in the fantail; and the explanation of this fact will be obvious when we treat of selection.
Darwin's researches prove that the skeleton of the wings in domestic pigeons has hardly varied at all from that of the wild type; while, on the other hand, it is in exactly those respects, such as the relative length of the beak and skull, the number of the vertebræ, and the number of the tail-feathers, in which muscular exertion can have no important influence, that the utmost amount of variation has taken place.
Many spirits visit the people during this rite, but the one chiefly interested is Idadaya, the spirit of the east. He and his ten grandchildren wear in their hair the notched tail-feathers of a rooster, which are known as igam. From time to time these lose their luster, and they can only be refreshed by having some mortal celebrate Pala-an.
While a pigeon is held by one man, another pushes one of the bird’s tail-feathers well through the quill, which is then fastened in its place by two minute wooden wedges. A moment later the pigeon is tossed up into the air, and we witness the working of that mysterious instinct which all our modern science leaves unexplained.
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