140 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



compared to that on the Mandrill's Bardolphian 

 nose, and the young of the Indian Paddy-bird 

 (Ardeola grayi), a very near relative of the Squacco 

 Heron of our British list, display among their tufts 

 of long hairy-looking down a skin of as lively a 

 green as any monkey can show in uncovered portions. 



It may happen that young birds are far prettier 

 than their parents, as in the case of the charmingly 

 striped and red-capped young Grebes ; in this case 

 they remind one of reptiles, in which the young are 

 generally very much more beautifully and distinctly 

 marked than the old, a contrast which is especially 

 marked in the case of crocodiles and tortoises, which 

 are quite handsome when young, though so parti- 

 cularly dull when adult ; and every naturalist must 

 have noticed the pretty silver-and-black young of 

 the plain-coloured slow- worm (Anguis fragilis), and 

 the rich sharp tints of young snakes. 



According to their reptilian descent, young birds 

 must at first have been active and variegated, and 

 tended to degenerate into uniform down or even 

 nakedness, as they departed further from the 

 ancestral type. The flying, independent young of 

 the Mound-builders, hatched as they are without 

 incubation, ought to be primitive, but they are 

 said to have a suit of down which they cast in the 

 shell, and at any rate they are not striped, a fact 

 which militates against the utility of striping for 

 protection, since they particularly ought to need 

 it, not having any parental care exercised on their 

 behalf, but shifting for themselves from the first 



