Brooding

“ Each day the brooding of the offspring becomes of less, and the food supply of more consequence, yet the male never seems to think that his services are really required, feeding the young only occasionally as it suits him. ”

“ And then, during the period of early training, when the young are dependent on the brooding breast and wing of the parent bird for their warmth, and on the active quickness of the parent bird, as their purveyor, for their sustenance,—desertion is death. If the mother then “wanders from her nest,” forsaking for any length of time her callow brood—they perish, the hapless victims of a mother’s neglect. They are starved of cold, or they are starved of hunger ”

“ As soon as this has been done the female lays, on the bare ground at the further end of the hollowed-out brooding-chamber, a single very large, top-shaped, brightly-spotted egg, and begins to brood alternately with the male. ”

“ A threefold burden is thus imposed upon the parents: they must find food for themselves, they must afford protection to the young by brooding, and they must supply them with the necessary food at regular intervals. ”

“ Upon her I brood, and do not cease, but brood and brood—the habit, if I remember right, first becoming fixed and fated during that long voyage eastward: for what is in store for her God only knows, and I have seen in my broodings long visions of her future, which, if a man should see with the eye of flesh, he would spread the arms, and wheel and wheel through the mazes of a hiccuping giggling frenzy, for the vision only is the very verge of madness. ”

“ Then the female prepares to lay her eggs, and both mates plaster up the entrance, the female working from the inside, the male from the outside, until all is closed up save an opening large enough for the female to force her bill through. Shut off from the outer world in this isolated brooding-chamber, the female sits on her eggs, and the male has to feed not only his imprisoned mate, but later the quickly-growing ever hungry young ones, which remain in captivity until they are fully fledged. ”

“ You have heard so much about the mother-bird sitting on the nest, that I am sure you will be interested in seeing a father who broods the eggs and hatches out the little ones. I have five wives. They all lay their eggs in one and the same nest, which is a hollow pit scraped out by their feet, the earth heaped up around to form a sort of wall. They lay the eggs, I have said, sometimes thirty in a nest, and I—well, I do the rest.
We are dangerous fellows if disturbed when brooding; have been known to attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on him. ”

“ The gay Bunting erects his white crest, and gives utterance to the joy he feels in the presence of his brooding mate. The Willow Grous on the rock crows his challenge aloud. Each floweret, chilled by the night air, expands its pure petals; the gentle breeze shakes from the blades of grass the heavy dewdrops. ”

“ When all the fertile eggs are hatched her next care is to get the brood safely to the water. This, when the distance is great, necessarily demands great caution, and so cunningly is it done that but few persons have encountered the mother and offspring as they make the dangerous journey. [1] If disturbed the young instantly hide as they best can, while the mother quacks loudly, feigns lameness, and flutters off to divert the attention of the intruder from her brood, who lie motionless at her warning notes. ”

“ Manifestly the impulse to brood could only have developed strength in so far as it fitted in with all the other factors that make for survival; and the principal factor in the external environment seems to be the territory. How could the young have been freed from the risk of exposure if the impulse to brood had not been so strongly implanted in the parent? How could the impulse to brood have been free to develop if a supply of food had not been first insured? How could the supply of food have been insured if numbers of the same species had been allowed to breed in close proximity? ”

“ In the early twilight, when they are less wild and the mother is not so quick to flutter away and draw you after her, I have sometimes surprised a brood of them,—wee, downy, invisible things, each with a comically long bill and a stripe down his back that seems to divide the little fellow and hide one half of him even after you have discovered the other. ”

“ And it is enough to touch the heart of the most indifferent to see the anxious mother bird, as I have seen her from the cranny of a neighbouring rock-pile, come back to her nest and call her scattered children together again after they have once dispersed at her command. Circling around the nest two or three times to assure herself that no one is nigh, she alights and begins a low clucking sound like that of a hen calling her brood. The little ones come out of their hiding-places one after another as mysteriously as they vanished. You can’t see for the life of you where they come from. ”

“ The young from the same dam, whether produced at the same time or not; young children of the same mother, especially if nearly of the same age; offspring; progeny; as, a woman with a brood of children. The lion roars and gluts his tawny brood. Wordsworth. 3. That which is bred or produced; breed; species. Flocks of the airy brood, (Cranes, geese or longÐnecked swans) . Chapman. 4. (Mining) Heavy waste in tin and copper ores. To sit on brood, to ponder. [Poetic] Shak. Brood, a. 1. Sitting or inclined to sit on eggs. 2. Kept for breeding from; as, a brood mare; brood stock; having young ”

“ The hen will feed her brood on substances which would mean the annihilation of ones’ entire flock of youngsters, should one attempt it, and, perhaps, the most curious feature of the feeding part is the fact that one may give the brood, running with the hen, food Nature never intended a small chick to eat, and many of the brood [122] will thrive on it, and the mortality will, in most cases, be confined to the weak ones. ”

“ Though their brood may be constantly removed, they will return, year after year, to the same nest, expressing, however, their discontent and distress when robbed, by keeping up for some days a loud and querulous chattering. ”

“ If this family in their progress from the nest to the sea, happen to be interrupted by any person, the young ones, it is said, seek the first shelter, and squat close down, and the parent birds fly off; then commences that truly curious scene dictated by an instinct analogous to reason, the same as has been already noticed in the mallard and the partridge; the tender mother drops at no great distance from her helpless brood, trails herself along the ground, flaps it with her wings, and appears to struggle as if she were wounded, in order to attract attention, and tempt a pursuit after her. ”

“ With the crow also the female alone broods, and broods throughout the whole period; the male bird supports the female, bringing her food and feeding her. The female of the ring-dove begins to brood in the afternoon and broods through the entire night until breakfast-time of the following day; the male broods during the rest of the time. Partridges build a nest in two compartments; the male broods on the one and the female on the other. After hatching, each of the parent birds rears its brood. But the male, when he first takes his young out of the nest, treads them. ”

“ Howard Saunders, in his 'Manual' (p. 518) , says:—"Two, if not three, broods are produced in the season, the young from the first nest assisting their parents in building another, and even in taking care of the second brood." The method of feeding struck me as peculiar. The old bird, on catching an insect, swam up, and presented it to the youngster, who picked it out of his (or her) bill. ”

“ This seemed to indicate that the little one knows its parents, for no one familiar with the craving hunger and the constant opening of the baby beak to its natural purveyors, will doubt that when a young bird failed to ask, it was because the elder was not its parent.
An early lesson in many bird lives is that of following, or flying in a flock, for at first the babies of a brood scatter wildly, and seem not to have the smallest notion of keeping together. ”

“ As soon as the young are hatched they will run to hide, while the mother bird is feigning [Pg 314] all kinds of decrepitude to attract your attention from the cute little brownish fluffs of feather scampering here and there for cover. I once knew a farmer boy who found a nest, took the eggs home, and put them under a hen. In due time they hatched out. How pretty, cute, and interesting were the little birds, and how the foster-mother strutted about, undoubtedly proud of her chicks! ”

“ In a few days after this, the young brood is enabled to fly, but it is some time longer before the little creatures can take their own food; until which time, they are fed by the parent birds, with the most affectionate solicitude. ”

“ Where, as is sometimes the case, there are two or three generations or broods of a species during the year, the life of one brood is generally longer than that of the others, because this brood is compelled to overwinter, or hibernate. ”

“ There is the low, sweet mother-talk to the brood, the notes of warning, the "scatter calls" of autumn from the survivors of an attack, "Where are you? Where are you?" and a sort of duet between male and female at nesting time. When she leaves the nest, she calls "Lou-is-e!" and he strikes in on the last syllable with "Bob;" she repeats, and he bursts forth "Bob White!" with emphasis. Then the clear, ringing whistles through midsummer sound up and down the meadow from one quail to another. ”

“ The brood would not prosper; the poor mothers would shiver on their eggs, and the bitter cold, stealing under their wings, would kill the chicks in the shell, despite the warmth of the maternal bosom. ”

“ When her young are hatched she marches them out like a hen with her brood, leading and protecting them, while they whine and bark around her like young puppies. Their mother belongs to the cannibal species, eating up her young in their babyhood, which precludes but few of them attaining their full size. ”

“ Like unfledged birds, they are hatched, nursed, and fed by hand; this gives room for a vast deal of management, meddling, care, and condescending solicitude; but the instant the callow brood are fledged, they are driven from the nest, and forced to shift for themselves in the wide world. ”

“ A meadow for the little lambs;
A honey hive for bees;
And pretty nests for singing birds
Among the leafy trees.
There's rest for all the little ones
In one place or another;
But who has half so sweet a place
As baby with her mother?
The little chickens cuddle close,
Beneath the old hen's wing;
"Peep! Peep!" they say; "we're not afraid
Of dark or any thing."
So, safe and sound, they nestle there,
The one beside the other;
But safer, happier, by far,
Is baby with her mother.
Mary F. Butts.
[227]
Good-Night
Little baby, lay your head
On your pretty cradle-bed ”

“ So soon as the first brood is well on the wing, the cock takes charge of it, and the hen proceeds to lay and hatch a second, the male bird and first brood remaining in the close vicinity, and the parents, I doubt not, attending the labor of incubation and attending the young. ”

“ Should not the loving warning, the far-seeing wisdom, the gentle entreaty, the stern rebuke have been heeded, in return for all that love which brooded tireless over their tender years? for all that love that hath fed them with Truth, — even the bread that cometh down from heaven, — as the mother-bird tendeth her young in the rock-ribbed nest of the raven's callow brood! ”

“ In many cases, when the brood is grown and all have left the nest, the whole family keep together. One who has eyes sharp to see will find everywhere little groups of parents with their young. If the old birds rear more than one brood in a summer, the young ones of the first nest keep together. ”

“ At the time when I came up, every chick was sound asleep in the brooder, while outside in the middle of their world, lay the untouched pile of angleworms, bare and open to view under the bright spring sky. ”

“ After each of these stories the little bird shuddered and crouched under his mother’s wing again: but the mastering desire to see the world always came back upon him, and great was the relief of the parents when the other eggs were hatched and education could begin. Then the nest was soon abandoned, and the little creatures trotted about with their mother; for they are not like the ugly nestlings that lie helpless and featherless in their nests for days and days, as human babies lie in their cradles for months. ”

“ Maid. Yes; but you must be good to all.
Boy. My aunt has a tame lamb, I love to give him milk; once I saw a fawn, I do not mean in a park, but I saw a tame fawn; the old doe was dead, so we fed the fawn at home. We kept him a long time, but he bit off the buds.
Maid. Have you seen a goat?
[Pg 28]
Boy. Yes; he has not wool; he has hair.
Maid. Now you may go with me. We will go and see the cows.
Boy. Why is one duck by itself?
Maid. The duck sits; she has a nest just by. I must feed her: she will not go far from her nest. The rest can get food. You may give her some corn ”

“ When young whip-poor-wills come out of the egg, they are dressed in speckled gray down. They cuddle down quietly by their mother, and the whole family is hard to see. When their eyes are shut, they look almost exactly like the earth and leaves among which they lie. ”

“ A fertile female overwinters and places her first-laid eggs in the chambers of a simple nest that she constructs herself. When the young of the first brood hatch, she provides them with food, enlarges the nest, and continues the task of egg-laying, while her first offspring relieve her of her former duties as they become able. ”