th equal ease;
but the action of their paws in leaping is, I imagine, from the fleshy
ball of the foot; while in the bird, characteristically [Greek:
gampsonux], this fleshy ball is reduced to a boss or series of bosses,
and the nails are elongated into sickles or horns; nor does the
springing power seem to depend on the development of the bosses. They
are far more developed in an eagle than a robin; but you know how
unpardonably and preposterously awkward an eagle is when he hops. When
they are most of all developed, the bird walks, runs, and digs well,
but leaps badly.

27. I have no time to speak of the various forms of the ankle itself,
or of the scales of armor, more apparent than real, by which the foot
and ankle are protected. The use of this lecture is not either to
describe or to exhibit these varieties to you, but so to awaken your
attention to the real points of character, that, when you have a bird's
foot to draw, you may do so with intelligence and pleasure, knowing
whether you want to express force, grasp, or firm ground pressure, or
dexterity and tact in motion. And as the actions of the foot and the
hand in man are made by every great painter perfectly expressive of the
character of mind, so the expressions of rapacity, cruelty, or force of
seizure, in the harpy, the gryphon, and the hooked and clawed evil
spirits of early religious art, can only be felt by extreme attention
to the original form.

28. And now I return to our main question, for the robin's breast to
answer, "What is a feather?" You know something about it already; that
it is composed of a quill, with its lateral filaments terminating
generally, more or less, in a point; that these extremities of the
quills, lying over each other like the tiles of a house, allow the wind
and rain to pass over them with the least possible resistance, and form
a protection alike from the heat and the cold; which, in structure much
resembling the scale-armor assumed by man for very different objects,
is, in fact, intermediate, exactly, between the fur of beasts and the
scales of fishes; having the minute division of the one, and the
armor-like symmetry and succession of the other.

29. Not merely symmetry, observe, but extreme flatness. Feathers are
smoothed down, as a field of corn by wind with rain; only the swathes
laid in beautiful order. They are fur, so structurally placed as to
imply, and submit to, the perpetually swift forward motion. In fact, I