Bird lore - Project Puffin

The Audubon Societies
s. Cedar
shingles water-tanksi taxidermist heads posts
rustic chairs
6. Maple
baskets crating parlor frames spools
bUnds croquet sets piano-backs tables
bobbins cattle stanchions rolHng-pins brush-handles
boxes broom-handles screens school desks
car ceiling flooring sleds window-screens
chairs finish wagons refrigerators
clothes-pins novelties spokes agricultural implements
7. Yellow Birch 11. Poplar 15. Butternut
8. Beech 12. Basswood 16. Tamarack
9. White Ash 13- Black Cherry 17. Willow
10. Brown Ash 14. Elm 18. Aspen
JUNIOR AUDUBON WORK
For Teachers and Pupils
Exercise XXV. Correlated Studies: Reading and Drawing.
Feathers, Part II
Continuing our study of a bird's plumage, let us devote attention in this
exercise to the coloring and markings of feathers. As we have already seen,
feathers differ in structure according to their location and use. They differ
also in color and pattern according to their location and wear, for feathers,
like clothes, may fade and become frayed and worn.
The first thing that the average observer notices about the plumage of
birds is, probably, the great variety of colors and markings apparent to the
eye. The rich glossy browns and blacks, brilliant blues, reds and yellows,
delicate flushes of color on somberly garbed birds, iridescent tints, combined
with an innumerable variety of markings, at once confuse and entrance the
eye. It is small wonder that, to beginners, the plumage of birds seems to be
their most important field character. How superficial this view is, however,
may be seen at once by inspecting a few separate feathers, especially, of highly
colored species. A yellow bird is found to have feathers the tips of which
alone are yellow, and so, of red or blue or even black birds, if the feathers are
contour feathers. Quill- and tail-feathers may be colored throughout.
Markings, also, are found to be mostly confined to exposed surfaces, as if
Nature were economizing by using only sufficient coloring-matter (pigment) to
make a show where it can be seen. One would scarcely believe, if told that a
feather gray-white or white, except at its tip, belonged to a red or yellow or
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