Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/117

Rh to inspire the conclusions of another Darwin. We want more recorders before we can anticipate new prophets.

It is impossible, with regard to space, to give many extracts. The author narrates one experience of the destruction of Pheasants' eggs by Crows. In a Scotch plantation, where thousands of Pheasants are annually reared and turned down, and in a slippery path along the sea-coast, "we found several sucked Pheasant's eggs, evidently the work of Crows, nor had we gone far before we came suddenly upon a whole family of Hooded Crows, five young and two old birds. In the course of about a quarter of a mile we counted over a hundred empty shells which had evidently been carried to the path and there devoured. How many more might have been discovered had we searched it is impossible to say, but we saw ample evidence of the wholesale destruction which a family of Crows is capable of committing among Pheasants' eggs."

To those interested in the discussion as to hereditary transmission of ideas and experience, a fact related of the Grey Peacock Pheasant, Polyplectron chinquis, a bird inhabiting the Indo-Chinese countries, will not be unacceptable. "We are told that when the young of this species were first hatched in the Zoological Gardens, a Bantam Hen was employed as a foster mother, and that the chicks would follow close behind her, never coming in front to take food, so that, in scratching the ground, she frequently struck them with her feet. The reason for the young keeping in her rear was not understood until, on a subsequent occasion, two chicks were reared by a hen P. chinquis, when it was observed that they always kept in the same manner close behind the mother, who held her tail widely spread, thus completely covering them, and there they continually remained out of sight, only running forward when called by the hen to pick up some food she had found, and then immediately retreating to their shelter."

A question in nomenclature seems to be raised by the name Megapodius Layardi, Tristran, 1879. In 1869 Mr. Sclater had for the same bird proposed the name M. brazieri, "founded on an egg from Banks I." Mr. Ogilvie-Grant is probably quite canonical in adopting the later description made from the bird itself. Would the same law apply to the description of a lepido-