Nesting and Rearing of Landrails in Captivity. 50 



interest and prido in his offspring. The poor fellow used 

 to sneak up occasionally, and watch his family, with a truly 

 benevolent and paternal expression, from a safe coign of 

 vantage, but woe betide him if discovered, his spouse would 

 dash at him like a veritable \irago and rain a shower, of 

 blows upon his devoted head, untd lie reached the kindly 

 shelter of a clump of pampas grass to which he always made 

 heltei -skelter. 



His sole contribution tf) the raising of the family ap- 

 pears to be his heroic, though entirely misplaced, vocal effort, 

 which only continues while the hen is actually incubating, for 

 the moment the chicks are hatched, it ceases. To this unfor- 

 tunate belief of his possibilities as a songster may, perhaps, be 

 traced the irritability of his spouse, who at all other times and 

 seasons, be it said, is a most placid and good tempered 

 creature. The poor( fellow, there is no doubt, thinks quite 

 honestly thai his nightmare of a serenade will cheer her up. 

 He reasons it out, 1 take it, something like this: "She must 

 (eel very bored and dull sitting there all day long on those 

 wretched eggs, and is probably both stiff and cramped to boot, 

 sc> 1 will jusl tvy and cheer her up with a bit of a song." 



I don't mean to say that all cock birds think like this, 

 for I am sure they don't: my last cock didn't, for instance, 

 he was a real brute and took a perfectly fiendish delight in 

 his diabolical noise, I'm sure; but the bird 1 have now is a 

 young one. i)robably in his fTrst nesting season, and had all 

 the loving ardour of the newly wed. That he " sang " out of the 

 be>t of motives, is_, 1 submit, clearly proved by his manner of 

 singing. He starts gaily —lighthearledly enough, but after 

 (hree " ( raiks "' i)auses, e\idently hoi;ilied at the re-^ult n( hi-) 

 efforts, then comes one more dispairing effort (it ma\- ha\ e 

 been my imagination, of course, but it always seemed to me 

 that the linal " < raik ' ended in a note ll.al was almost a wail 

 of despair). After Avhich, now evidently thoroughly shocked 

 and frightened at the horrible result of his efforts, he prob- 

 ably coiK luded that he must have caugdit a bad thill or some- 

 thing, hastily dec ides to give his voice a rest and relapses, 

 until the following day, into a gloomy silence, when the same 

 jnanauvres aie gone through ome more. It \\a^ ipute pathetic 



