CiiAF. XIV.] ITS NATUllE AND ORIGIN. 233 



stiiicts in Birds has been recorded by the same observer, 

 and is of great interest. He srys * : — 



" A bitch ferret strangled herself by tryinof to squeeze through too 

 narrow an opening. She left a very young iamily of three orphans. 

 These I gave, in the middle of the day, to a Brahma hen, which had 

 been sitting on dummies for about a month. She took to them almost 

 immediately, and remained with them for rather more than a fort- 

 night, at the end of which time I had to cause a separation, in 

 consequence of the hen having suffocated one of the ferrets by 

 standing on its neck. During the whole of the time that the 

 ferrets were left with the hen, the latter had to sit upon the nest, 

 for the young ferrets, of course, were not able to follow the hen 

 about as chickens would have done. The hen, as might be expected, 

 was very much puzzled at the lethargy of her offspring. Two or 

 three times a day she used to fly off the nest, calling npon her 

 brood to follow ; but upon hearing their cries of distress from cold, 

 she always returned immediately, and sat with patience for six or 

 seven hours more. I should have said that it only took the hen 

 one day to learn the meaning of these cries of distress ; for after 

 the first day she would always run in an agitated manner to any 

 place where I concealed the ferrets, provided that this place was 

 not too far away from the nest to prevent her from hearing the 

 cries of distress. Yet I do not think it would be possible to conceive 

 of a greater contrast than that between the shrill piping note of a 

 young chicken and the hoarse growling noise of a young ferret. 

 On the other hand, I cannot say that the young ferrets ever seemed 

 to learn the meaning of the hen's clucking. 



" During the whole of the time that the hen was allowed to sit 

 upon the ferrets, she used to comb out their hair with her bill, in 

 the same way as hens in general comb out the feathers of their 

 chickens. While engaged in this process, however, she used fre- 

 quently to stop and look with one eye at the wriggling nestful, with 

 an enquiring gaze expressive of astonishment. At otlier times, also, 

 her family gave her good reason to be surprised, for she used often 

 to fly off the nest suddenly with a loud scream, an action which 

 was doubtless due to the unaccustomed sensation of being nipped 

 by the young ferrets in their search for the teats. It is further 

 worth while to remark that the hen showed so much uneasiness of 



* Log. cit., p. 554. 



