Hen Driving Away a Dog from Her Chickens. Fig. 12
{illust. caption = FIG. 12 Hen driving away a dog from her chickens.
Drawn from life by Mr. Wood.}
Swan Driving Away an Intruder. Fig 13
{illust. caption = FIG. 13. Swan driving away an intruder. Drawn from
life by Mr. Wood.}
Small birds, also, as I hear from Mr. Weir, such as various finches,
buntings and warblers, when angry, ruffle all their feathers, or only
those round the neck; or they spread out their wings and tail-feathers.
With their plumage in this state, they rush at each other with open
beaks and threatening gestures. Mr. Weir concludes from his large
experience that the erection of the feathers is caused much more by
anger than by fear. He gives as an instance a hybrid goldfinch of a
most irascible disposition, which when approached too closely by a
servant, instantly assumes the appearance of a ball of ruffled
feathers. He believes that birds when frightened, as a general rule,
closely adpress all their feathers, and their consequently diminished
size is often astonishing. As soon as they recover from their fear or
surprise, the first thing which they do is to shake out their feathers.
The best instances of this adpression of the feathers and apparent
shrinking of the body from fear, which Mr. Weir has noticed, has been
in the quail and grass-parrakeet.[415] The habit is intelligible in
these birds from their being accustomed, when in danger, either to
squat on the ground or to sit motionless on a branch, so as to escape
detection. Though, with birds, anger may be the chief and commonest
cause of the erection of the feathers, it is probable that young
cuckoos when looked at in the nest, and a hen with her chickens when
approached by a dog, feel at least some terror. Mr. Tegetmeier informs
me that with game-cocks, the erection of the feathers on the head has
long been recognized in the cock-pit as a sign of cowardice.
The males of some lizards, when fighting together during their
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