The hunter gatherer wanting some form of buoyant weight for casting a small bait mounted on his hand carved deer bone hook, who then stripped a feather found laying next to the water, tied it on his horsehair line, cast it out and sat back to await events made a truly great innovation. He'd have quickly realised that not only did it work as desired but also lent the advantage of making bites from hard to catch fish very easy to see, introducing the crucial element of skill to what was always beforehand only a matter of allowing stupid fish time enough to gorge themselves. By the simple act of employing a quill, the sport and art of angling was born... And no doubt shortly after, the close season! Of course we all know about quill floats. Those are the ones that only tweedy traditionalists use these days, but really, all the crystal wagglers, avons and pike pencils on tackle shop shelves are nothing more than manufactured synthetic quills because the principle of employing a tough light shell containing a large bubble of trapped air is exactly same and of course they work in the same fashion. There's nothing new in angling! Because I make my own floats from swan and goose quills I have to gather as many as I can for the entire season's supply at moulting time, which is right now for those birds. Along the way I find a lot of other feathers too, have quite a collection of many species and their feather types, and what I don't need I sell on to all kinds of people besides anglers and for all kinds of uses and purposes. So, on the eve of the new season I thought I'd devise a quiz over three rounds to take your mind off the fact you can't fish till midnight (but should be prepared enough by now!) with the prize of a set of hand-made goose quill floats for you to win, use, and lose whether you want them or not! I'll start with these four specimens from different species. They are from common birds related in their feeding habits and when fishing you'll see one usually en-route, one high in the sky, one occasionally though very briefly, but one very rarely ~ Answers are of course the species first and foremost, but extra information about which actual type of feather it is will serve as tie breakers and if anyone knows what's so very special about the properties of one of them, then we have an expert ornitho-piscator to contend with. But anyhow. Remember where your float came from, make thanks to the long dead genius who invented the thing whenever you cast, and because of it I do hope you'll enjoy ... Tight lines, wet nets, tomorrow! Round 2 next weekend