mm 



:w 



156 



STERILITY FROM 



Chap. XVIII. 



plicable exceptions in regard to the fertility of certain species and genera 

 under confinement. Although, many trials have been made with the 

 common partridge, it has rarely bred, even when reared in large aviaries • 



and the lien will never hatch her own eggs. 



The American tribe of 



Guans or CracidaB are tamed with remarkable ease, but are very shv 

 breeders in this country ; 47 but with care various species were formerly 

 made to breed rather freely in Holland. 48 Birds of this tribe are often 

 kept in a perfectly tamed condition in their native country by the Indians 

 but they never breed. 49 It might have been expected that grouse from 

 their habits of life would not have bred in captivity, more especially as 

 they are said soon to languish and die. 50 But many cases are recorded of 

 their breeding: the capercailzie (Tetrao urogallus) has bred in the Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens ; it breeds without much difficulty when confined in Norway 

 and in Eussia five successive generations have been reared : Tetrao ietrix 

 has likewise bred in Norway ; T. Scoticus in Ireland ; T. umbellus at Lord 

 Derby's ; and T. cupido in North America. 



It is scarcely possible to imagine a greater change in habits than that 

 which the members of the ostrich family must suffer, when cooped up in 

 small enclosures under a temperate climate, after freely roaming over desert 

 and tropical plains or entangled forests. Yet almost all the kinds even 



the moornk (C 



) from New Ireland, has frequently 



produced young in the various European menageries. The African 

 ostrich, though perfectly healthy and living long in the South of France, 

 never lays more than from twelve to fifteen eggs, though in its native 

 country it lays from twenty-five to thirty. 51 Here we have another instance 

 of fertility impaired, but not lost, under confinement, as with the flying 

 squirrel, the hen-pheasant, and two species of American pigeons. 



Most Waders can be tamed, as the Eev. E. S. Dixon informs me, with 

 remarkable facility ; but several of them are short-lived under confinement, 

 so that their sterility in this state is not surprising. The cranes breed 

 more readily than other genera : Grus montigresia has bred several times 

 in Paris and in the Zoological Gardens, as has G. cinerea at the latter 

 place, and G. antigone at Calcutta. Of other members of this great order, 

 Tetrapteryx paradisea has bred at Knowsley, a Porphyrio in Sicily, and the 

 Gallinida cMoropus in the Zoological Gardens. On the other hand, several 



46 Temminck, < Hist. Nat. Gen. des « Bates, ' The Naturalist on the 



Pigeons,' &c, 1813, torn. iii. pp. 288, Amazons,' vol. i. p. 193 ; vol. ii. p. 112. 

 382 ; ' Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' «o Temminck, ' Hist. Nat. Gen.,' &c, 



vol. xii., 1843, p. 453. Other species of 

 partridge have occasionally bred; as 



torn. iii. p. 125. For Tetrao urogallus, see 

 L. Lloyd, < Field Sports of North of 

 Europe,' vol. i. pp. 287, 314 ; and ' Bull, 

 de la Soc. d'Acclimat.,' torn, vii., I860, 

 de Physique,' torn. xxv. p. 294), and in p. 600. For T. Scoticus, Thompson 



the red-legged (P. rubra), when kept 

 in a large court in France (see ' Journal 



the Zoological Gardens in 1856. 



Nat. Hist, of Ireland/ vol. ii., 1850, p. 



Eev. E. S. Dixon, ' The Dovecote,' 49. For T. cupido, ' Boston Journal of 



1851, pp. 243-252. 

 48 Temminck, 'Hist. Nat. Gen. des 



Nat. Hist.,' vol. iii. p. 199. 



51 Marcel de Serres, ' Annates des Sci. 



1 lgeons/ &c, torn. ii. pp. 456, 458 ; torn. Nat.,' 2nd series, Zoolog., torn. xiii. p. 



iii. pp. 2, 13, 47. 



175. 





