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The Helmet is another kind of Pigeon distinguish'd from the others, because it has the Head, the Quill-Feathers, and the Tail-Feathers always of one colour: Sometimes black, sometimes white, or red, or blue, or yellow; but the other Feathers of the Body are of a different colour.
They soared, circling closer, closer two mounting high, two flying low, and so passed westward, while the sky was spattered with shrapnel long, white streaks falling slow and straight, like tail-feathers of a shot eagle. There was scant time to speak, or even draw an excited breath after the birds had disappeared, because they were back again, hovering so high that they were changed to insects.
In fact, we were about to give up the pursuit, when three blows, struck at regular intervals, resounded near us. It climbs easily up the trunks of trees, resting upon its tail-feathers. At length we observed it, and as we looked, admiring its plumage, it again struck three resounding blows, and ran round the tree as if to inspect the other side.
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 vertebrae, 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.
I hastened to it, picked it up perhaps somewhat roughly, and as it tried to escape, I held some of its tail-feathers fast, so that it lay fluttering in my hand. I was very much frightened, and the merchant seemed so also. He soon laughed with malicious joy, and said that I should swallow the corn, because it would prevent the flight of the frightened prisoner.
Nevertheless they met the Haddens in the porch, in the glory of their purple pheasant plumes, whereof the long tail-feathers made great circles in the air as the young heads turned this way and that, in the excitement of a few snatched words before they entered.
In these two latter cases the great length of the tail-feathers must be in some degree inconvenient to the female; and as in both species the tail- feathers of the female are somewhat shorter than those of the male, it might be argued that their full development had been prevented through natural selection.
"Oh, my tail-feathers!" cried old Father Owl aghast. "This is bad business; we'll be having trouble and mischief all the time now. It would have been better if we had let old Thistletop stay. What shall we do?" "Do! do!" cried old Mother Owl in an exasperated voice; "what is there to do, I should like to know, but to get the children away?
"Certainly; and there is plenty of light yet if you wish to write it down." The Chimney Swift Length five and a half inches. Sooty brown. Sharply pointed tail-feathers. A Summer Citizen of eastern North America from Florida to the Fur Countries. An excellent neighbor a friend of the farmer and his cattle.
As to their boats, called canoes, each is hollowed out of the single trunk of a tree and can hold as many as forty men. Their dress of ceremony is a kind of vest made of paroquets' feathers, woven together, and so arranged that the large wing and tail-feathers form a sort of girdle round their loins, which gives them a whimsical and ridiculous appearance."
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