FREAKS OF»BACHELORS AND BENEDICTS. 87 
have as many partners as there are years in their little 
lives. 
To such birds as rear more than one brood there 
may be a second or third spring of the season, when 
the tactics of charming are again resumed. The re- 
vival of song about the end of June, when the first 
fledglings are able to care for themselves, is very no- 
ticeable. While most birds retain the same mates for 
all the year, there is just a hint sometimes that some 
get a new partner for each nesting occasion. We 
shall see in the next chapter that birds have no scru- 
ples about second marriages the same season when 
there is the slightest occasion for them. 
Neither have some any compunctions about taking 
more than one wife at one time. Especially is this the 
ease among the lower families. While in all the 
groups there are some that exhibit both tendencies 
(i. e., one wife and many wives), yet, as the birds have 
developed music and the more refined methods of 
charming, they have become monogamous (one wife 
only), and exhibit during the nesting season all the 
tender little gallantries that make up so much of love 
and life. The hornbill walls his wife into a hole with 
mud, and feeds her while she incubates (see Chapter 
XXI). Many others bring choice delicacies to their 
incubating mates. Others still take their turns at sit- 
ting, in constructing nest, feeding of young, ete. 
Some males construct the nest alone, and many 
among the lower forms (ostriches, ete.) take exclusive 
charge of the young when hatched. As noted in 
some plover forms, the males do all the incubating, 
8 
