Craig, Expressions of Emotion in Pigeons. 77 



i 



AYliitinan, oai removing the eggs from a nest, has observed the birds 

 to begin fondling one another within half an hour afterwards. When 

 only one egg hatches, so that the labor of feeding is only half what 

 it usually is, the birds have more energy and come more quickly 

 to the preparation for a new brood. The shortest interval I have 

 observed between hatching and laying is, when only one bird is 

 reared, 13 days ; when two birds are reared, 14 days. 



In the normal course of events the inauguration of a new brood 

 cycle is gradual, being a repetition, perhaps somewhat abbreviated, 

 of the performance by which the birds first become mated. There 

 is first a period of bowing and cooing by the male and a gradual rise 

 of excitement in both birds ; then a period of copulation, nest-calling, 

 and nest-building, with a gradual decline in the excitement, followed 

 by the laying of the eggs and the birds' devotion again to incubation. 

 Thus (even before the old brood cycle is finished) is a new brood 

 cycle begun. 



It has been said that after the birds have begun a new round of 

 mating they still foster the young of the last brood, but there is a 

 limit to tliis fostering of the old fledglings ; there comes a time when 

 the parents not only refuse to feed them but cease to tolerate their 

 presence. This desertion of the former brood happens much earlier 

 with the female parent ; so soon as the mother has taken to sitting 

 again, she begins to acquire a hostile attitude towards her nearly 

 grown-up-children ; so far from feeding them, she pecks at them when 

 they try to share the seed-cup with her; and so far from brooding 

 them, she keeps them alwaj^s at a little distance from her body. 

 Affairs generally continue in this smoldering condition for several 

 days; but a day comes — and according to my observation it is almost 

 invariably the day on which the new eggs hatch — when the fire of 

 this maternal jealousy bursts fourth and the mother persecutes the 

 fledglings with such fury that if they were not taken from the cage 

 they would perhaps even be killed. The male, though not nearly so 

 aggressive in this matter, has become more or less completely indiffer- 

 ent to the old fledglings, and shows no regret at their departure. 

 Thus ends the brood cycle. 



