486 FOSTER PARENTAGE. 



that this is usually the assigned motive, under similar cir- 

 cumstances, in man. But unfortunately neither in men, nor 

 among other animals, does the experiment usually prove 

 fortunate, so far as concerns the happiness or comfort of the 

 first young family. 



It happens, occasionally, that more than one foster-parent 

 or mother takes a fancy to a young brood, under which 

 circumstances quarrels for exclusive possession of the envied 

 treasures might be expected to occur, and probably do occa- 

 sionally occur. But on the other hand, and on the contrary, 

 these competing foster-parents find it to be equally their 

 interest and pleasure to co-operate in tending a group of 

 young, adopted by both. Wood tells us that a widowed goose, 

 ' without encumbrances,' took a fancy to a brood of ducklings 

 that had previously been adopted by a hen. A mutual 

 arrangement was arrived at whereby the hen tended the 

 brood on land, and the goose on water. But the hen does 

 not seem to have been contented with this division of labour 

 and love, and a further arrangement was entered into whereby 

 both foster-mothers could follow their darlings on water as 

 well as on land. The plan adopted in regard to the water 

 was that the hen should sit on the goose's back while she 

 swam about after and among the ducklings. This Wood 

 expressly describes as ( a fact/ and not ' a solitary event,' for 

 it continued, to be repeated day after day, till the ducklings 

 were old enough not to require the care of either self- 

 appointed guardian. 



Some animals such as young cuckoos regularly stand 

 in need of the services of foster-parents in their up-bringing ; 

 they are brought up, if at all, by mothers of some other species 

 or genus (Baird). In their case there is a systematic baby- 

 nursing by some other bird. The mother-cuckoo * boards 

 out' its nurslings ; she transfers the maternal duty of rearing 

 her young to some willing or unwilling stranger foster- 

 mother ; she shirks and escapes from what appears to be a 

 troublesome, though natural, duty ; and all this has its 

 parallel or counterpart in the behaviour of too many ladies 

 of fashion in America, France and England, who devolve 

 upon others some of the perhaps irksome duties of their own 

 maternity. 



