AND LOWER EGYPT. 307 



abandon them to a strange mother, whose hopes 

 she has had the barbarity to annihilate ; the only 

 one, in fine, which nature has deprived of the 

 happiness of rearing her brood, and of lavishing 

 on them those tender cares which, in our woods, 

 are observed in these little winged communities; 

 the cuckow, I say, is too dissimilar from its habits, 

 which form an exception in the history of animals, 

 to a bird whose manners possess nothing but what 

 is highly interesting. The houhou is not a solitary 

 bird: they go in pairs, and the attachment which 

 unites them appears durable ; she sits on her eggs 

 and rears her brood. It does not go to seek for 

 the thick shades of the forests, it takes pleasure 

 in places inhabited. It does not dread the neigh- 

 bourhood of man ; and modest in its plumage, 

 from the grave tone of its voice, and from the 

 gentleness of its manners, it employs itself in ren- 

 dering him services, by continually hunting those 

 insects which devour the harvests ; a new proof 

 that brilliancy and noise are not always the com- 

 panions of utility. A difference in their manners 

 equally characteristic, whatever may be, in other 

 respects, the outward resemblance, separates very 

 distinctly two species of birds, which have only 

 some slight similarity in form, and even this si- 

 milarity abundantly remote, as the houhou has the 

 nail of the posterior claw bending inward, straight 

 and lengthened, like that of the lark ; whereas 



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