tfS 



The Descent of Man. 



Part II. 



able to discover whether with these species the young resemble 

 the adult males more closely than the adult females ; for the 

 comparison is somewhat difficult to make on account of the double 

 moult. 



Turning now to the Ostrich order : the male of the common 

 cassowary (Casuarius r/aleatus) would be thought by any one 

 to be the female, from his smaller size and from the appendages 

 and naked skin about his head being much less brightly coloured ; 

 ind I am informed by Mr. Bartlett that in the Zoological 

 Gardens, it is certainly the male alone who sits on the eggs and 

 takes care of the young. 21 The female is said by Mr. T. W. 

 Wood ffi to exhibit during the breeding season a most pugnacious 

 disposition; and her wattles then become enlarged and more 

 brilliantly coloured. So again the female of one of the emus 

 (Dromceus irroratus) is considerably larger than the male, and 

 she possesses a slight top-knot, but is otherwise indistinguishable 

 in plumage. She appears, however, " to have greater power, 

 " when angry or otherwise excited, of erecting, like a turkey - 

 " cock, the feathers of her neck and breast. She is usually the 

 " more courageous and pugilistic. She makes a deep hollow 

 " guttural boom especially at night, sounding like a small gong. 

 " The male has a slenderer frame and is more docile, with no 

 " voice beyond a suppressed hiss when angry, or a croak." He 

 not only performs the whole duty of incubation, but has to 

 defend the young from their mother ; u for as soon as she 

 '•' catches sight of her progeny she becomes violently agitated, 

 " and notwithstanding the resistance of the father appears to 

 " use her utmost endeavours to destroy them. For months 

 " afterwards it is unsafe to put the parents together, violent 

 " quarrels being the inevitable result, in which the female gene- 

 u rally comes off conqueror." 23 So that with this emu we have 

 a complete reversal not only of the parental and incubating 

 instincts, but cf the usual moral qualities of the two sexes ; the 

 females being savage, quarrelsome, and noisy, the males gentle 

 and good. The case is very different with the African ostrich, 

 for the male is somewhat larger than the female and has finer 



it is, as he informs me, with Limosa 

 lapponica and some few other 

 Waders, in which the females are 

 larger and have more strongly con- 

 trasted colours than the males. 

 21 The natives of Ceram (Wallace, 



Malay Archipelago,' vol. ii. p. 150) 

 nsssrt that the male and female sit 



»ltf/nately on the eggs : but this 



assertion, as Mr. Bartlett thinks, 

 may be accounted for by the female 

 visiting the nest to lav her eggs. 



22 ' The Student,' April, 1870, p. 

 124. 



23 See the excellent account of 

 the habits of this bird under confine- 

 ment, by Mr. A. W. Bennett, in ' Land 

 and Water,' May, 1868, p. 233. 



