Perhaps the small ones too, all over the body, are of some help in flight, because they make a bird smooth, so that it can cut through the air more easily--you know they all lie one way, pointing backward from their roots to their tips.

Then when Rap said feathers keep a bird warm, he guessed right.

Birds wear plumage as you do clothes, and for the same purpose--to look nice and keep warm." "But what is 'plumage,' Uncle Roy ?" asked Dodo; "I thought you were talking about feathers." "So I was, missy.

Feathers are the plumage, when you take them all together.

But see here," added the Doctor, as he spread the Sparrow's wings out, and held them where the children could look closely; "are the wings all plumage, or is there something else ?" "Of course there's something else to wings," said Dodo; "meat and bones, because I've eaten chickens' wings." "Why didn't you say, Dodo, because there has to be something for the feathers to stick into ?" said Nat decidedly.
"You both have very good reasons," said the Doctor.