caption = FIG. 13.--Swan driving away an intruder.
Drawn from life by Mr. Wood.}
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.[15] 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.
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