250 THE WILD DUCK 



and self-complacency, endeavours thus to redress 

 the balance between the sexes ? But other birds, not 

 less brilliant, need a like protection during the 

 moulting season and, certainly, do not get it ; and, 

 if Nature does, indeed, take so severe a view of the 

 failings of the male sex in the duck tribe, why 

 does she pass over the selfishness and the brutality 

 of the male sex in other and much higher orders 

 of beings, in the human race, for instance ? Is it 

 possible that there is an analogy between this 

 freak of Nature and that other still more extra- 

 ordinary one, which, in various ages of the world, 

 and, in countries as remote from each other as 

 Corsica from China, leads a man, while his wife 

 is undergoing her confinement, himself to take to 

 his bed, to receive therefrom the congratulations 

 of his friends, to undergo pangs which, whether 

 from some mysterious sympathy or not, do not 

 seem to be wholly imaginary, and to continue 

 there a close prisoner, long after his wife has risen 

 from her couch and has resumed her household 

 duties? Again, I say, I cannot tell. When we 

 are able to explain the mystery of the Couvade, we 

 may also be able to explain the metamorphosis of 

 the duck. Then, but not, perhaps, till then. 



I have remarked that the wild duck, when 



