Pin feather protective peripheral sheath, longitudinal barb ridges, and growth plates. Over time these barb ridges lengthen helically, branch to create barbs and barbules, and fuse to form the rachis or central shaft. Moreover, the barb plate further differentiate into hooklets and cilia, while the marginal and axial plate die to form the intervening space within the feather structure. During moulting, a bird may get careless and begin to chew at its feathers and might accidentally damage a blood feather. To prevent this, it is necessary that the bird is given chewing toys so that it does not chew at its own
Calamus (poems) the allegedly mind-altering effects of the root. The root was chiefly chewed at the time as a breath-freshener and to relieve stomach complaints. Calamus (poems) The "Calamus" poems are a cluster of poems in "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. These poems celebrate and promote "the manly love of comrades". Most critics believe that these poems are Whitman's clearest expressions in print of his ideas about homosexual love. The first evidence of the poems that were to become the "Calamus" cluster is an unpublished manuscript sequence of twelve poems entitled "Live Oak With Moss," written in or before spring 1859.