hen of her duty at a fixed hour daily: and his care for the young when
hatched is as tender as hers. Among song-birds, in which the male and
female forms are so alike as sometimes to be indistinguishable, and which
are also monogamous, the male and female forms not only exhibit the same
passionate affection for each other (in the case of the South African cock-
o-veet, they have one answering love-song between them; the male sounding
two or three notes and the female completing it with two or three more),
but they build the nest together and rear the young with an equal devotion.
In the case of the little kapok bird of the Cape, a beautiful, white,
fluffy round nest is made by both out of the white down of a certain plant,
and immediately below the entrance to the cavity in which the little female
sits on the eggs is a small shelf or basket, in which the tiny male sits to
watch over and guard them. It is among certain orders of birds that sex
manifestations appear to assume their most harmonious and poetical forms on
earth. Among gallinaceous birds, on the other hand, where the cock is much
larger and more pugnacious than the female, and which are polygamous, the
cock does not court the female by song, but seizes her by force, and shows
little or no interest in his offspring, neither sharing in the brooding nor
feeding the young; and even at times seizing any tempting morsel which the
young or the hen may have discovered.

Among mammals the male form tends to be slightly larger than the female,
though not always (the female whale, for instance, being larger than the
male); the male also tends to be more pugnacious and less careful of the
young; though to this rule also there are exceptions. In the case of the
South African mierkat, for instance, the female is generally more combative
and more difficult to tame than the male; and it is the males who from the
moment of birth watch over the young with the most passionate and tender
solicitude, keeping them warm under their persons, carrying them to places
of safety in their mouths, and feeding them till full grown; and this they