114 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



thing would stand up under its long-legged parent, 

 whose body was not very near the ground even with 

 the legs bent, so that only its little legs were visible, 

 the body being concealed in the parent's feathers. 



Some birds, however, may brood their young 

 on the back under the wings, like the common 

 Mute Swan, in which this seem* to be the habit of 

 the female only ; in the case of a pair of the South 

 American Black- necked Swan {Cygnus melancery- 

 ■phus) which bred at the Zoo some years ago, how- 

 ever, the male carried the cygnets in this way 

 quite as often as the female, but this may not be 

 normal with the species, as I never saw the male 

 of the Kew pair do it when he had young — ^he seemed 

 to spend most of his time in making unprovoked 

 attacks or at least threatening naval demonstrations 

 against the Geese. 



In Grebes the young are habitually carried in 

 this way on the back of the swimming parent, at 

 any rate at first, and I have been able to observe in 

 the case of the Indian Dabchick (Podicipes cafensis) 

 that the parent when brooding them on the nest 

 at night also takes them on its back there ; cer- 

 tainly the wet nest would be a most inconvenient 

 and probably unsafe bed for them, as they are far 

 less hardy than young Ducks, and even these can 

 easily have too much wet. Both of the pair of 

 Dabchicks I watched carried the young, but espe- 

 cially the bird I took to be the female, although it 

 was the larger ; coloration in. Grebes is no help 

 in fixing the sex. While one bird carried the 



