508 COMMISSION OF EKROB. 



the eggs, or of the young, from cold. Some birds deposit 

 their eggs in nests where they will not be hatched (Houzeau). 

 The quail and partridge ' deposit their young, uncovered, on 

 the ground, and expose them to the rapacity of every carni- 

 vorous animal that passes ' (Pouchet). What is much more 

 strange, though not so serious, hens ' sit ' without eggs at 

 all; they strive apparently to hatch imaginary eggs fancy 

 they have veritable eggs under them (Gray), a singular form 

 of self-deception ; or they brood when the eggs are not 

 fecundated (Houzeau) ; or they drop their real eggs from 

 their perch so as to smash them by the fall (Gray), in other 

 words, they sometimes select the most unsuitable localities 

 for incubation. 



Such errors of the maternal instinct are not confined to 

 birds : they occur in the care or up-bringing of the young 

 in all classes^of the higher animals. Thus an old terrier 

 bitch, when jealous of her daughter having had pups, appro- 

 priated an india-rubber toy-dog ( exactly the size of a new- 

 born terrier puppy She retired to a dark closet in an 



unoccupied room, made herself a bed, lay down and placed 

 the artificial puppy in the right position. . . . lavished end- 

 less caresses upon it, and evidently felt the sweetest thrill of 

 maternal delight when her licking elicited a squeak from the 

 mechanism inside, which speaks through a metallic hole in the 

 creature's stomach. She is inseparable from this bantling, 

 has rectified the injustice of Fate, and no longer hates her 

 daughter with destructive jealousy.' She ' continued inse- 

 parable from her doll for three weeks, when, finding it 

 rather tedious to waste her affections on a thing that neither 

 grew nor showed any signs of intelligence, she relinquished 

 the india-rubber puppy to its rightful owners the children 

 of her master and is now contented to see her grandchildren 

 playing about her ' (' Animal World '). 



Errors of the maternal instinct also include 



1. The abduction of young by sterile females that have no 

 milk on which to bring them up (Pierquin). 



2. The mother stork immolating herself with her young 

 a useless act of self-sacrifice (Houzeau). 



3. Cannibalism of the young by the puerperal mother a 



