Part ix., 1879.

FOOTNOTES:

[145] _Curiosities_, &c., p. 126. Wilson also, in his _American Ornithology_, gives the following sufficiently credible account of the memory of a crow:--'A gentleman who resided on the Delaware, a few miles below Easton, had raised [reared] a crow, with whose tricks and society he used frequently to amuse himself. This crow lived long in the family, but at length disappeared, having, as was then supposed, been shot by some vagrant gunner, or destroyed by accident. About eleven months after this, as the gentleman one morning, in company with several others, was standing on the river shore, a number of crows happened to pass by; one of them left the flock, and flying directly towards the company, alighted on the gentleman's shoulder, and began to gabble away with great volubility, as one long-absent friend naturally enough does on meeting another. On recovering from his surprise the gentleman instantly recognised his old acquaintance, and endeavoured, by several civil but sly manoeuvres, to lay hold of him; but the crow, not altogether relishing quite so much familiarity, having now had a taste of the sweets of liberty, cautiously eluded all his attempts; and suddenly glancing his eye on his distant companions, mounted in the air after them, soon overtook and mingled with them, and was never afterwards seen to return.'

[146] _Journal of Mental Science_, July 1879.

[147] Couch, _Illustrations of Instinct_, p. 165.

[148] _Gleanings_, vol. i., pp. 112-13.

[149] Couch, _Illustrations of Instinct_, p. 232.

[150] See especially Bingley, _Animal Biography_, vol. ii., pp. 327-29.

[151] _Gleanings_, pp. 58-9.

[152] Smiles, _Life of Edward_, p. 240.

[153] _History of Mexico_, p. 220.

[154] _Zoologist_, vol. ii.

[155] Watson, _Reasoning Power of Animals_, pp. 375-76, where see also some curious cases of male storks slaying their females upon the latter hatching out eggs of other birds. He gives an exactly similar case as having occurred with the domestic cock; and in Bingley (_loc. cit._, vol. ii., p. 241) there is quoted from Dr. Percival another case of the same kind, in which a cock killed his hen as soon as she had hatched out a brood of young partridges from eggs which had been set to her.

[156] See Darwin. _Descent of Man_, pp. 92, 381, 406, 413.

[157] Gould, _Birds of Australia_, vol. i., pp. 442-45.

[158] Bingley, _Animal Biography_, vol. ii., p. 220.

[159] For full information, see Buckland, _Curiosities of Natural History_, p. 183.

[160] Of the crow (carrion and hooded), Edward says: 'He goes aloft with a crab, and lets it fall upon a stone or a rock chosen for the purpose. If it does not break, he seizes it again, goes up higher, lets it fall, and repeats his operation again and again until his object is accomplished. When a convenient stone is once met with, the birds resort to it for a long time. I myself know a pretty high rock, that has been used by successive generations of crows for about twenty years!' Also, as Handcock says, 'a friend of Dr. Darwin saw on the north coast of Ireland above a hundred crows preying upon mussels, which is not their natural food; each crow took a mussel up into the air, twenty or forty yards high, and let it fall on the stones, and thus breaking the shell, got possession of the animal. Ravens, we are told, often resort to the same contrivance.'

[161] Couch, _Illustrations of Instinct_, pp. 192-93.

[162] _Gleanings_, &c., vol. i., p. 71.

[163] _Ibid._

[164] _Voyage of a Naturalist_, &c., p. 184.

[165] _Orn. Biog._, i., p. 276.

[166] Newton, _Encycl. Brit._, art. 'Birds.'

[167] _Catalogue of Birds_, &c., p. 16.

[168] Gould, _Birds of Australia_, vol. ii., p. 155, where see for further description.

[169] _Animal Biography_, vol. ii., p. 204.

[170] See _Descent of Man_, p. 452 _et seq._

[171] See Newton, _Ency. Brit._, art. 'Birds.'

[172] _Natural Selection_, pp. 232-3.

[173] _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxviii., p. 221 _et seq._

[174] The young cuckoo is generally hatched first.

[175] Allusion is here made to the fact that the cuckoo lays her eggs at intervals of two or three days, and therefore that if all were incubated by the mother, they would hatch out at different times--a state of things which actually obtains in the case of the American cuckoo, whose nest contains eggs and young at the same time.

[176] It is worth while to observe, as bearing on this theory of the origin of this parasitic habit, that even non-parasitic birds occasionally deposit their eggs in nests of other birds. Thus, Professor A. Newton writes in his admirable essay on 'Birds' in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 'Certain it is that some birds, whether by mistake or stupidity, do not unfrequently lay their eggs in the nests of others. It is within the knowledge of many that pheasants' eggs and partridges' eggs are often laid in the same nest; and it is within the knowledge of the writer that gulls' eggs have been found in the nests of eider-ducks, and _vice versâ_; that a redstart and a pied flycatcher will lay their eggs in the same convenient hole--the forest being rather deficient in such accommodation; that an owl and a duck will resort to the same nest-hole, set up by the scheming woodman for his own advantage; and that the starling, which constantly dispossesses the green woodpecker, sometimes discovers that the rightful heir of the domicile has to be brought up by the intruding tenant.'

[177] _Origin of Species_, p. 215.

[178] Tom. i., p. 130.

[179] See _Birds of India_, i., p. 21; _Passions of Animals_, p. 60; _Fac. Men. des Ani._, tom. ii., p. 183; _Mind in Lower Animals_, vol. ii., p. 96; and _Descent of Man_, p. 74.

[180] _Animal Biography_, vol. ii., p. 173.

[181] _Nature_, xx., p. 266.

[182] Vol. i., p. 216. See also _Descent of Man_, p. 80.

[183] Menault, _Wonders of Instinct_, p. 132.

[184] _Nat. on Amazons_, p. 177; _Anecdotes_, p. 135.

[185] _Gleanings_, vol. ii., p. 96.

[186] _Ibid._, p. 99.

[187] _Nature_, vol. xiii., p. 303.

[188] _Unbeaten Tracks in Japan_, vol. ii, pp. 149-50.

[189] Smiles, _Life of Edward_, pp. 244-6.