Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/173

Rh master of the house and taking possession of his wives, who are nothing loth. This form of social life has also been tried among men, but its influence on character has not proved elevating. It does not tend to produce good fathers nor worthy sons, as David found out and Solomon too. And among gallinaceous birds the father does not take much interest in his offspring. The mother retires into solitude and brings them up herself. Fortunately they need far less care than the young of other birds generally. Born on the ground, they get on their own legs as soon as they leave the egg, and they do not open their little mouths to be fed, but pick up food for- themselves, the mother showing them the way. So they are very soon able to shift for themselves, though they follow the mother for months. Under these conditions a mother can manage a much larger family than if she had to feed each one with a spoon, and the mothers of this order are usually like the old woman who lived in a shoe, as I remember her represented in my early picture books. But there is usually only one brood in the year.

Gallinaceous birds are not musical; in fact, there is a defect in their vocal organs, so that they cannot modulate their voices. They utter clucks or clicks, or a long shrill note, dislocated in the middle, which is called a crow. Jerdon quotes the observation that there is an analogy in many points between this order and the Ruminants among beasts, namely, the cattle and sheep and deer. Certainly the gallinaceous birds appear to be even more distinctly designed for food than the Pigeons. There is no race of birds that man persecutes more persistently.