Why does a bird ruffle his feathers?
A bunny wears a coat of cuddly fur and a bird is dressed in feathers. You put on a shirt and shorts and shoes. And now and then you take off your clothes to be washed and sometimes mended. Bunnies and birds also like to keep their clothing comfortably clean and looking handsome. A bird has a dozen good reasons for looking smooth and smart. But he cannot take off his feathery outfit and send it to the laundry or to the cleaners. His soft, silky feathers are fixed into his skin. They grow one by one, over lapping each other with the feathery fringes folded together to make a smooth surface all over his chest and back, his wings and his handsome head. If he took all those feathers out one by one and w4shed them in a stream, he could never get them back in their proper places. Besides, each one grows from a living root in his skin, somewhat like the hairs on your head. When you pull out a hair, you cannot put it back again you must wait for the root to sprout a new hair. The feathery coat
