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Quill and a parchment. A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird.Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen/metal-nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen.
Goose feathers were used as quill pens, the best being the primary feathers of the left-wing, whose "curvature bent away from the eyes of right-handed writers". [31] The feathers also served to fletch arrows. [30] In ethology, the greylag goose was the subject of Konrad Lorenz's pioneering studies of imprinting behaviour. [32]
In books for adults, birds may have symbolic or psychological significance. For instance, Paul Gallico's 1940 The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk was a parable about the regenerative power of friendship in wartime; the goose symbolises both the hero, Rhayader, a wounded artist, and the world wounded by war. [126] T. H.
Goose and eider down have great ... meaning feather. [10] The French word plume can mean feather, quill ... black and grey eumelanins) and carotenoids (red, yellow ...
The ostrich feathers heraldic motif is generally traced back to Edward, the Black Prince (1330–1376), eldest son and heir apparent of King Edward III of England.The Black Prince bore (as an alternative to his paternal arms) a shield of Sable, three ostrich feathers argent, described as his "shield for peace", probably meaning the shield he used for jousting.
The word "goose" is a direct descendant of Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰh₂éns.In Germanic languages, the root gave Old English gōs with the plural gēs and gandra (becoming Modern English goose, geese, gander, respectively), West Frisian goes, gies and guoske, Dutch: gans, New High German Gans, Gänse, and Ganter, and Old Norse gās and gæslingr, whence English gosling.
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The use of the phrase "white feather" to symbolise cowardice is attested from the late 18th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.The OED cites A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), in which lexicographer Francis Grose wrote "White feather, he has a white feather, he is a coward, an allusion to a game cock, where having a white feather, is a proof he is not of the ...