226 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



their eggs. Occasionally they may steal a robin's 

 or a catbird's nest, may even destroy the owner's 

 eggs (though never to my knowledge), in order 

 to save labor the unimaginative labor of laying 

 one stick across another when one does not know 

 how. But here is a plain case of knowledge wait- 

 ing on desire. So undeveloped is the mother in 

 the cuckoo that if you touch her eggs she will 

 leave them abandon her rude nest and eggs, as 

 if any excuse were excuse enough for an escape 

 from the cares of motherhood. How should a bird 

 with so little mother- love ever learn to build a 

 firm- walled, safe, and love-lined nest ? 



The great California condor, according to the 

 records of the only one ever studied, is a most 

 faithful and anxious mother, the dumb affection 

 of both parents indeed, for their single offspring, 

 being at times pathetically human. On the other 

 hand, the mother in the turkey-buzzard is so 

 evenly balanced against the vulture in her that 

 I have known a brooding bird to be entirely un- 

 done by the sudden approach of a man and to 

 rise from off her eggs and devour them instantly, 

 greedily, and then make off on her serenely soar- 

 ing wings into the clouds. 



