4 
March 22, 1883 | 
NATURE 
481 
out in the sand, and relieve each other by turns at incubation. 
Je Vaillant purposely watched an ostrich’s nest, and during the 
day saw four hens sit successively on the same eggs, a male bird 
coming late in the evening to take his turn at incubation.” A 
little further on, [ added: ‘‘Incubation lasts six weeks, the 
cock-bird taking his turn at sitting like the hens.” 
Your reviewer, still sce; tical, replies: ‘‘ The passage in Mr. 
Harting’s book is based on the statement of Le Vaillant, whose 
observations, except when confirmed by later experience, are justly 
discredited by the best-informed naturalists of the present day, 
as he was notoriously so often unworthy of belief.” 
Permit me to point out that in making the statement above 
quoted, I by no means relied so/e/y on Le Vaillant. I had before 
me the evidence of several modern observers on the subject, 
whose publications are referred to in my ‘‘List of Works 
quoted,” at the commencement of my volume. At p. 189 I 
have alluded to the experiments made at San Donato, near 
Florence, in 1859 and 1860, by Prince Demidoff, who says that 
“‘the female ostrich began to sit as soon as the first egg was 
laid, and sat for three hours daily, leaving the male for the rest 
of the time.” 
At p. 196, quoting a report forwarded in 1873 by a resident 
of experience in South Africa to the Council of the Zoological 
and Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, who were then contem- 
plating the introduction of the ostrich into that colony, I find 
this distinct statement: ‘‘ The process of hatching is performed 
by the male and female sitting alternately, one keeping a vigilant 
look-out as sentry, as well as procuring food.” 
_ Again, ina Report by Dr. W. G. Atherstone of Grahams- 
town, based on observations made by himself and friends on 
different ostrich farms in the neigbourhood of Grahamstown, 
and quoted by me zz extenso, the following pas:age occurs on 
p. 202 of my book :—‘‘ They sit alternately, the male at night 
grazing and guarding the females. During the daytime, the time 
of the male bird going on the nest vari s during the period of 
incubation, as also does the time between the female leaving the 
nest and the male taking her place, the exposure and cooling 
being probably regulated by the temperature of the incubation 
fever at different stages.” 
In addition to the evidence of these observers I had before me 
the testimony of Mr. F, Denny of Grahamstown, which is too 
long to be quoted here, but which will be found embodied in an 
interesting note published in the Zoo/ogist for 1874 (p. 3916) ; so 
that I felt perfectly justified in asserting in effect, as Mr. Romanes 
has done, that the task of incubation with the ostrich is shared by 
both the sexes. It would be easy to adduce further evidence on 
the subject if necessary, but I will not occupy space further than 
to observe that if your reviewer will turn to p. 107 of Douglass’s 
“ Ostrich Taming in South Africa,” published by Messrs. Cassell 
and Co. in 1881, he will see a full page illustration thus lettered, 
\“* Hen bird sitting. Froma photograph taken at Heatherton 
Towers.” 
Admirers of Le Vaillant will be glad to learn that in this case 
‘at least his assertions (to quote your reviewer) ‘‘ have been con- 
jfirmed by later experience,” and are therefore not to be dis- 
credited.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
22, Regent’s Park Road, N.W. 
J. E. HARTING 
After such a battery of evidence it seems almest needless to 
adduce more ; but as the point is an interesting one to ornitho- 
logists, I shall briefly add some corroborative proof from other 
sources. 
| In the Sfectator, besides referring to the above, I gave a 
eference to two articles published by Mr. E. B. Biggar on the 
strich-farms of the Cape Colony, and also to the recently pub- 
ished work by Mr. Nicols ; from each of these sources I shall 
ow quote brief passages. Mr. Biggar writes as follows :— 
“Some will sit throughout with the most solicitous maternal 
mstinct; . . . others manifest such anxiety, that when the hen 
as been a little late in taking her morning turn upon the nest, 
e has gone out, and, hunting her up, has kicked her to the nest 
in the most unmanly manner. Some are very affectionate over 
eir young, others the reverse ; thus do individuals differ even 
mong ostriches. Asa rule the cock bird forms the nest, sits 
e longest, and takes the burden of the work of hatching and 
fearing. Contrary to what has been currently understood, and 
hat is still stated even in recent colonial accounts, the cock 
ird sits at night, not the hen. In this peculiarity the hand of 
rovidence may be seen, for the worst enemies of the nest 
ppear at night, and the cock, being stronger and braver, is 
etter able to resist them; moreover, the feathers of the cock 
fl 
being black, night sitting would not expose him to that exhaus- 
tion from the sun’s rays which would ensue if he sat during the 
day ; while at the same time time the grey feathers of the female 
are less conspicuous while she sits during the day.”—Fi/d, 
August 21, 1880, 
And again, ‘After turning the eggs over one by one with her 
beak, she will sit perhaps for hours with her head stretched flat 
and snake-like on the ground, and her body as motionless as a 
mound of earth. Occasionally, on hot days, she may be seen 
with her body lifted slightly out of the nest to admit a current of 
air over the eggs ; and sometimes she will even leave the nest 
for two or three hours, till instinct tells her thet the lowering 
temperature requires her return” (Cextury, January, 1883). 
Mr. Nicol’s work, entitled ‘‘ Zoological Notes,” repeatedly 
states that the hen bird assists the cock in the process of incuba- 
tion, and on my writing to him to ask whether he had witnessed 
the fact, he answers that although he has not done so himeelf, a 
well-educated friend ‘‘who had passed some time in visiting 
ostrich-farms in South Africa” had done so ; and, in answer to 
his express inquiry on the subject, wrote, ‘‘that the female took 
part in the task, though not nearly to so great an extent as the 
male,” adding that he was surprised to hear there should be any 
question concerning a fact so well known to the ostrich farmers. 
Lastly, having recently been to Florence, I took the oppor- 
tunity of calling upon the superintendent and proprietor of the 
Zoological Gardens there, and obtained all the particulars of the 
case alluded to by Mr. Harting in the above letter as having 
occurred at San Donato. I found that two brocds of young 
had been raised in successive years by the same pair of ostriches, 
and that on both occasions the female assisted the male to incu- 
bate the eggs: ‘‘que Je male et la femelle couvent alternative- 
ment,” in the words of the published report (‘‘ Guide du R. 
Jardin Zoologique de Florence,” p. 81, 1868). Here, however, 
as in allthe previously-mentioned cases, the fact which I stated 
in *‘ Animal Intelligence” was apparent, viz. that the cock bird 
undertook the whole duty of sitting during the night. 
Now when all this evidence is taken together it appears to me 
impossible to doubt that the female ostrich assists the male in 
the process of incubation. Yet from the fact of this evidence 
not having been clearly focused, an cld error on the subject 
still appears to be prevalent. This error aro-e some twenty years 
ago from the observations of M. Noel Suchet (? or Suquet) on a 
pair of ostriches kept in confinement. Thus, in 1863, Dr. 
Sclater wrote :—‘‘ We now know with certainty from the obser- 
vations of M. Noe] Suchet, Director of the Zoological Gardens 
at Marseilles, that the normal habits of the ostrich (as regards 
incubation) do not differ materially from those of its allies of the 
same family” (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1863, p. 233); and Mr. Darwin, 
following the judgment formed by Dr. Sc’ater, wrote in the 
“Descent of Man” (p. 479) that the male bird ‘‘ undertakes the 
whole duty of incubation.” Again, my reviewer in the Sfccfator 
—who, although curiously weak in his logic, appears to be 
strong in his ornithology—pins his f:ith entirely to this single 
observation of M. Suchet. Lastly, Prof. Newton in his article 
on “‘ Birds” in the ‘‘ Encyclopedia Britannica” (p. 771), rely- 
ing, I presume, on the same observation, writes :—‘‘ A band of 
female ostriches scrape holes in the desert sand, and therein 
promi-cuously dropping their eggs, cover them with earth, aid 
leave the task of incubation to the male, who discharges the 
duty thus impo:ed upon him by night only, and trusts by day to 
the sun’s rays for keeping up the needful fostering warmth.” 
Thus it appears that the influence of M. Suchet’s observations 
has been very disproportionate to its merits, and has misled some 
of our principal ornithologists concerning the normal habits of 
ostriches.1 Possibly Prof. Newton, with his extensive knowledge 
of the literature of such matters, and writing since the appear- 
ance of most of the counter-evidence which I have given, is 
cognisant of some other observations on which he rests his 
statement. But, if so, it becomes desirable that he should sup+ 
ply his references, as otherwise bis statement appears to rest, 
as my reviewer in the Spectator would say, ‘‘simply on the 
survival of the old belief.” GEoRGE J, ROMANES 
March 12 
Difficult Cases of Mimicry 
I HAVE received from Mr. Thos. Blakiston, of Tokio, Japan, a 
communication to the Yafan Mail by himself and Prof. Alexar der, 
* I may observe that Mr. R. B. Sharpe, writing in ‘‘ Cassell’s Natural 
History”’ (vol. iv. p. 228), has not been thus misled, for he says distinctly 
that the cock and hen “‘ relieve each other by turns.’” 
