Page - 1103 - in The Complete Aristotle

eggs in the nest of a smaller bird after first devouring the eggs of this bird; it lays by preference in the nest of the ringdove, after first devouring the eggs of the pigeon. (It occasionally lays two, but usually one.) It lays also in the nest of the hypolais, and the hypolais hatches and rears the brood. It is about this time that the bird becomes fat and palatable. (The young of hawks also get palatable and fat. One species builds a nest in the wilderness and on sheer and inaccessible cliffs.) < div id=“section109” class=“section” title=“8”> 8 With most birds, as has been said of the pigeon, the hatching is carried on by the male and the female in turns: with some birds, however, the male only sits long enough to allow the female to provide herself with food. In the goose tribe the female alone incubates, and after once sitting on the eggs she continues brooding until they are hatched. The nests of all marsh-birds are built in districts fenny and well supplied with grass; consequently, the mother-bird while sitting quiet on her eggs can provide herself with food without having to submit to absolute fasting. 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. < div id=“section110” class=“section” title=“9”> 9 Peafowl live for about twenty-five years, breed about the third year, and at the same time take on their spangled plumage. They hatch their eggs within thirty days or rather more. The peahen lays but once a year, and lays twelve eggs, or may be a slightly lesser number: she does not lay all the eggs there and then one after the other, but at intervals of two or three days. Such as lay 1103