Crest (feathers) Crest (feathers) The crest is a prominent feature exhibited by several bird and other dinosaur species on their heads. The crest is made up of semiplume feathers: a long rachis with barbs on either side. These are plumulaceous feathers, meaning that they are soft and bendable. In birds, these semiplumes are common along the head, neck, and upper back, and may be used for buoyancy and sensing vibrations. Crests on birds are generally used for display purposes. Cockatoos and their smaller cousins, cockatiels, are part of the parrot family Cacatuidae found in Australia, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Philippines, and
Calamus (poems) sequence as written celebrates many aspects of "comradeship" or "adhesive love," Whitman's term, borrowed from phrenology to describe male same-sex attraction. This attraction is presented in its political, spiritual, metaphysical, and personal phases—Whitman offering it as the backbone of future nations, the root of religious sentiments, the solution to the big questions of life, and as a source of personal anguish and joy. The 1860 edition contains three poems that Whitman would later edit out of the sequence, including the very personal Calamus 8, "Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me," and Calamus 9, "Hours continuing long, sore