72 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



her. This indeed may be considered as almost the 

 commencement of the labours of the cock; for though 

 he helps a little in the building of the nest, he does 

 not work at it with the unwearied assiduity of the 

 female. In the instance of the capocier (Sylvia 

 macroura), Vaillant tells us that he observed the fe- 

 male to be much more active and anxious about the 

 building than the male, even punishing him for 

 being frolicksome and idle by pecking him with her 

 beak ; while, in revenge, he would sometimes set 

 about pulling portions of the nest to pieces*. 



Independently, then, of assisting to build the nest, 

 the female evidently could not well perform her do- 

 mestic duties, if left to her own efforts ; though 

 amongst polygamous birds, as we shall subsequently 

 notice, this remark requires to be taken with some 

 modification. The instinct, or whatever it may be 

 called, which leads birds .to anticipate, foresee, and 

 provide for this necessity, we cannot, in our present 

 state of knowledge, trace to its immediate causes ; and 

 we must therefore rest contented with the knowledge 

 of the observed facts. Some of these are not a little 

 interesting, particularly on account of the close re- 

 semblance of the proceedings of birds to our own, 

 a resemblance that does not hold with those of other 

 classes of animals. 



It might be supposed that birds of prey would be 

 in the first instance somewhat afraid of each other in 

 their preliminary communications ; at least an ento- 

 mologist would readily suppose so from knowing that 

 it is no uncommon thing among predacious insects 

 for the females to make prey of the males, even after 

 pairing. Birds of prey, however, though, when 

 pressed by hunger, they might not refuse to de- 

 stroy their own species, are not like spiders actuated 

 by indiscriminate cannibal voracity ; and though 



* Oiseaux d'Afrique, iii. 77; and Architect, of Birds, p. 282. 



