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. 



