WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 



This is altogether a fallacy. In no instance does anything 

 of the kind occur. The young bird chips or breaks through 

 unaided (except by the warmth imparted) by the parents. 

 The marked difference in the period required in hatching 

 the various kinds of birds is also marked by the different 

 state or condition of the young at the time they are 

 hatched. For instance, the pigeon that is hatched in 

 fourteen days is naked and blind, and has to be fed by the 

 parents, and remains in the nest until it has grown its 

 feathers and is enabled to fly. The chicken, however, 

 that required twenty-one days to hatch, comes out pre- 

 pared to run about, well clothed in down, its eyes well open, 

 and it commences to pick up its food from the ground, 

 and is in every way perfectly able to shift for itself without 

 the aid of its parents, if provided with food and shelter. 



The early hatching of the pigeons and other birds that 

 remain long in the nest, and require to be fed and attended 

 by the parent birds, contrasts strongly with others that 

 are produced in a far more perfect state. This perfect and 

 imperfect state of development is not confined, however, 

 to any particular class or order of the vertebrate animals, 

 for in the mammalia we have the same state of early 

 birth in the Marsupial animals, — such as the kangaroo 

 and opossums, who are provided with pouches to receive 

 imperfectly-developed young ; while in the Ruminants — 

 such as deer and antelopes, etc. — the young are able to 

 run and follow their parents soon after birth. It is not a 

 little remarkable, however, the diversity that exists in 

 this matter among the Rodents; for instance, the hare 

 and rabbit. In the former the young are well clothed, 

 see, and feed soon after birth, while the rabbit is bom 

 naked and blind, and remains in the nest for weeks. 

 Many other instances could be adduced of this singular 

 diversity in the large Order known as Bodentia. 



238 



