at n a .m ., but on the 12th at 8 a .m . they could see perfectly, and came out to
nibble at the lettuce leaves provided for their mother. When the parent detected
my presence she seized with her teeth the young ones and forced them back into
the nest-box, in precisely the same way as I have seen a poor woman fetch in her
rambling young in the presence of danger. The fussiness, the anxiety, and the
administered rebuke were ludicrously alike in both cases. At eighteen days old
the young Orcadians were practically independent of their mother, but she would
still drive them home in a peremptory manner. The excessive micturition of
this species makes them somewhat dirty in confinement, and proper drainage is
necessary.’
