212 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



evidence of the origin of this habit having been as I 

 suppose, if we only found it amongst birds the 

 young of which are fed by their parents. As far as 

 I know, I believe this to be the case, but my know- 

 ledge does not enable me to speak decidedly, nor 

 have I been able to add to it, in this particular, by 

 consulting the standard works. Birds whose young 

 are not fed from the bill, by their parents, are, as I 

 think for I am not certain in regard to all the 

 gallinaceous or game birds, the rapacious ones (accl- 

 pitres\ the plovers and stilt-walkers, the bustards, 

 the ostriches, &c. In none of these, so far as I 

 know, do the male and female either feed or " neb" 

 one another there is neither the thing, nor the form, 

 or symbol, of it. Birds where there is either the one 

 or the other, or both, belong, amongst others, to 

 the crow, parrot, gull, puffin, tit or finch tribes, and 

 all these feed the young. In the grebe family, too, 

 the two customs obtain, but whether they are com- 

 bined in any one species of it, I cannot with certainty 

 say. It would not, of course, follow that a bird 

 which fed its young, should, also, feed its mate, or 

 that the pair, when caressing, should seize each other's 

 bills ; but is there any species belonging to those 

 orders where the chick shifts for itself, as soon as it 

 is hatched, or, at the least, does not receive food 

 from the parent's beak or crop, which does either, 

 or both, of these things ? In conclusion, I can only 

 wonder that a habit so salient, and which, to me, 

 seems so curious especially in the case of the caress 

 merely, for a caress it certainly is should not, ap- 

 parently, have been thought worth consideration 

 hardly, even, worth notice. Of all beings, man, 



