The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-29

always appear red. black or brown,
as the case may be.
The same applies to most yellow and
orange feathers, and. in one order of
birds, to green. The pigments are red
black, yellow and green colorings mat
tiers in solution, or as corpuscles dis
tributed in and between the cells
Brown is the result of the mixture of
red and black pigments. Blue and
white pigments are unknown in feath-
ers. Perhaps the simplest case of
structural color is that of white. White
ness is due to numerous bubbles of air
or other gas in the colorless ceratine OF
which the feather is composed. Owing
to the different retroactive induces of
air and ceratine. each side of each
bubble acts as a rejecting surface
The result is that practically the whole
of the light that falls on the feather
is reflected and the feather therefore
appears white.
The explanation, in fact. is the same
as in the case of snow, froth, many
powders and other substances in which
there are interstices filed with air
Yellow Is often due to longitudinal
ridging. Certain structural colors re-
semble pigmental colors in remaining
unchanged by reflected light. Ths 81
have been called objective to distin-
guish them from subjective or chang
ing metallic colors. In both cases the
color Is partly due to pigment The
structure that by itself gives yellow
will give orange il there be red pigment
underlying it. The presence of small
polygonal bodies results in blue and
green, though green may be due also
to narrow ridging. If a feather colored
in one of these ways be held between
the eye and the light it will show only
the color of the pigment. Wetting or
RI oivag q rpGll1t
effect of the structure alone without
pigment can be seen in white ducks
where the wing feathers that would be
blue in a colored duck have a peculiar
sheen. In the same way the eyes can
be traced in the tail of an Albiuo pea
cock. Subjective colors are produced
by prismattc structures everything a
blackish pigment The colors change
always in the same order. Certain col
ors may not appear owing to the over
tapping of two or more spectra.
These colors are confined to the bar
bules, while objective structural colors
and the brighter pigments occur only
in the barbs The different kinds of
colors are not combined in the same
feather, but whatever part is brightly
colored Is more fully developed. 1t is
not surprising, then, that the feathers
most used in flight and heretofore re-
curing a well-balanced development
of every part should generally be dull
The ornamental use of feathers is to
certain extent a sacrifice. The Brazil
ian motmot prefers to carry the sacri-
flee still further by altering the form of
the two middle feathers of the tail.
1.-THE bird" says Waterton-and others
have borne witness to the truth of his
statement-"seems to suppose that its
beauty can be increased by trimming
the TAIL which undergoes the same
operation as our hair in BARRIERS shop,
only with this difference, that it uses
its own beak, which is serrated, in lieu
of a pair of scissors AS soon as his
tail is full grown he begins about an
inch from the extremity of the longest
two feathers in it and cuts away the
web on both sides of the shaft, making
a gap about an inch long