138 HABITS OF BIRDS. 
the existence, of his offspring. Among insects there 
is still less need of the aid of the male, so far at least 
as food is concerned; for very few insect parents 
live to see their offspring. Insects, in most cases, 
finding their own food as soon as they are hatched, 
it is the chief care of the mother to deposite her 
eggs where appropriate food may be readily ob- 
tained by her progeny. Food, indeed, is in some 
instances collected by the méther and brought to 
the place where her eggs are deposited; but the 
male parent never shares either in the labour of 
procuring it or in the construction of the nest for | 
its reception ; while in the singular exceptions fur- 
nished by ants and other insects living in commu- 
nities, neither the males nor the females, but a pe- 
culiar race of nurse insects, provide the necessary 
food for the young. Among birds, on the other 
hand, food for the young has in most instances to 
be brought from a distance, and much assiduity is 
required to collect it in sufficient quantity, the vo- 
racity of nestlings being almost insatiable. Among 
them, therefore, the assistance of the male in this 
work is in most species almost indispensable. When 
the brood is numerous, it would be extremely diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, for the female alone to pro- 
cure the requisite supply. Rooks, for example, 
which feed their young upon the grubs of chafers. 
and similar insects, have often to make long excur- 
sions from their nest-trees before they can find the 
required prey; and if this task were assigned to the 
female alone, she could not obtain enough to sus- 
tain her own wants and the incessant cravings of 
five young ones, which will readily devour their 
own weight of food in the course of a single day. 
Accordingly, when the rooks, as they sometimes 
do, build a second nest late in the season, in con- 
sequence of the first being destroyed, they find it 
scarcely possible to rear their young; the warmth 
of the advancing summer drying up the ground, and 
