The Argosy — page 310: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Animal Disguise and Defence. 289 little pinch of down fluttered out and was not observed at first. <A foot down the hill had rolled half the shell it had come out of. There was no callowness as in the young of most birds. It seemed a singular place for a young bird to begin its life, this little pinch of down, and lie still on the exact spot where the egg lay—a flat, exposcd shelf on the side of a bare hill, with nothing but the whole heavens, the broad universe above, to brood it when its mother was away.” The night-jar is not very widely distributed in our country, being only found in any number in the southern counties. In most of the home-counties, that is, the counties immediately round London, it is found. Wimbledon Common, at certain secluded parts, has its full quota ; Holmwood Common, in Surrey, is a good spot for study, and at Epsom and all round Leith Hill and thereabout, ample oppor- tunities for observation and the study of its habits present themselves. It visits some parts of Kent and Essex, and the southern portion of Herefordshire and Wilts. Various theories have been advanced to account for,the presence of the comb-like flange on its middle toe—some holding that it is for the purpose of cleaning its feathers, the shortness of its beak making the mouth hardly effective for the purpose. Our idea is that its use is to clean the quills of the upper beak from the particles of dust and dirt sure to adhere to them in its flight, owing to the presence of the gummy substances with which, as we have said, they are covered. The night-jar does not stay long with us. If it comes with the nightingale it goes with it to softer, sunnier climes, where some supply of its favourite food is still to be found. It does no more than lay its eggs and rear its brood ; then it migrates. How ‘the little pinch of down,” grown to some semblance of the parent = manages the long flight is a mystery, but it does. The fact that the bird’s flight is so silent, and that in the dimness of evening it has some vague resemblance to an owl, has led it to get the name of owl, with various qualifications, as ORES fern- owl, jar-owl; but it is in several respects a more wonderful bird than the owl; and all that combines to specialise it, as the naturalists say, to make it so wonderful, is closely allied with the protective ‘colouring, habits and instincts, which alone have preserved it against the attacks of so many enemies. Another large group of animals in which this protective process is especially discernible is the class which assumes a winter dress. The most prominent of these among quadrupeds are the silver fox, the variable hare, and the stoat or ermine. The fur changes more or less suddenly from the hues that best served for the creature’s pro- tection during the warmer season, to white or to a markedly lighter hue, to show less conspicuously against the snow or the silvery gleam of frost on winter vegetation. And it is curious enough that not Only the slower or quicker change is determmed by the temperature, COMIC OOoOlKS.EO© im