122 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



Malays imagined that this was the work of the jealous 

 male, but it is the female's own doing. " She sits," 

 Marshall says, " securely hidden, safe from any carnivore 

 or mischievous ape or snake stealthily climbing, while 

 the male exerts himself lovingly to bring his mate those 

 delightful things in which the tropical forest is rich- 

 fruits above all, but occasionally a delicate mouse or 

 juicy frog. He flies with his booty to the tree and gives 

 a peculiar knock, which his mate knows as his signal, 

 and thrusts her beak through the narrow window, wel- 

 coming her meal." At the end of the period of incuba- 

 tion, C. M. Woodford says, " the devoted husband is 

 worn to a skeleton." 



But animals, like men, have their vices, and birds, 

 generally so ideal in their behaviour, are sometimes 

 criminals. Ornithologists assure us that the degree of 

 parental care varies not only in nearly related species, 

 but also among members of the same species. We need 

 not lay much stress on the fact that a bird occasionally 

 slips its egg into a neighbour's nest, for when a partridge 

 thus uses a pheasant's rough bed, or a gull that of an 

 eider-duck, it is likely enough that the intruder had 

 been disturbed from her own resting-place when about 

 to lay. We approach something different in the case of 

 the American Ostrich (Rhea), the female of which is quite 

 ready to utilise a neighbour's burrow ; nor does the 

 owner seem to object, for all the brooding is discharged 

 by the male, " and it is no great art to be patient and 

 magnanimous at another's expense." Again, in the case 

 of the American Ani (Crotophaga ani), of whose habits 

 we unfortunately know little, a number of females some- 

 times lay their eggs in a common nest. 



We are so glad to hear the cuckoo's call in spring that 

 we almost forget the wickedness of the voluble bird. 

 The poets have helped us, for they have generously 

 idealised, in fact idolised, the cuckoo, the "darling of the 

 spring," " a wandering voice babbling of sunshine and 

 of flowers," a " sweet," nay more, a " blessed bird." 

 But the cuckoos have hoaxed the poets, for they are even 

 worse than their legendary reputation of being sparrow- 



