6 2 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



were several horses and mules which greedily devoured the eggs 

 laid in their mangers by improvident hens. I believe that this 

 habit is not uncommon. At any rate, I have been told of several 

 instances in which this same practice has been acquired by other 

 horses. Also upon this farm, during the winter of 1887, a milch 

 cow and a fully grown pig were shut up together in the same lot. 

 This cow, which had been furnishing milk bountifully, suddenly, 

 about a month after her confinement in the lot with the pig, 

 ceased to supply milk at all. At first she was accused of " stub- 

 bornly holding her milk," but after several days it was decided 

 that some one was stealing her milk. A careful watch was then 

 kept, and the thief proved to be the pig. 



Another kind of variability which is displayed by wild birds 

 has received not a little attention from ornithologists namely, 

 that which they exhibit in their nesting habits. From the ob- 

 servations of Coues, Ridgway, and Allen, we learn that not only 

 in regard to the place, but also in regard to the manner of build- 

 ing their nests, do birds display considerable variation. Also we 

 know that among wild birds the male aids much more in the rear- 

 ing of broods than do the males of our various domestic fowls. 

 The wild male often takes turns with the female in sitting on the 

 incubating eggs, and in some instances the male assumes the 

 entire responsibility of rearing a hatched brood while his mate 

 builds a new nest and lays another set of eggs. Domestication 

 seems to have obliterated much of this parental instinct in our 

 male fowls. When, perhaps by reversion, we find such instinct 

 to be developed in our domestic male fowls, we are at once im- 

 pressed by the unusualness of the occurrence. I know of no 

 instance recorded in which parental instinct seemed to be so fully 

 developed in the male of any of our domestic fowls as in the fol- 

 lowing case. In the poultry yard upon a farm in La Salle County, 

 Illinois, there was but one pair of turkeys. The hen, one spring, 

 stole away, made her a nest in some hiding place, and in due time 

 began to incubate her eggs. After her disappearance the male 

 became exceedingly lonely. Sometimes he would follow her in 

 her tortuous retreat to the nest after a visit to the house for food ; 

 but he returned later, more disconsolate than ever. He strove to 

 make friends with the other fowls, but found none which seemed 

 to realize his loneliness and give him sympathy or affection. 

 After ten days or so of this dreary neglect he gave up in despair 

 and began to sit upon a deserted nest of hen's eggs which he dis- 

 covered under some shrubbery in a corner of the lawn. From 

 that time on he seemed as contented, important, and preoccupied 

 as any sitting hen. He would not leave the nest until driven by 

 absolute need of food and water. Then he would run to the feed- 

 ing-pans, greedily swallow a few grains of corn and a gulp of 



