Let us at once acknowledge our ignorance; there is much that cannot be explained.
If, however, we speculate at all on the matter, certain general ideas may be suggested. We are led to the view that when the father undertakes the care of the young, this reversal in the family duties must be primarily due to some failure on the part of the mother in performing the work in the nursery and home which customarily is hers. It is as if the father steps into her place in order that the species may escape the nemesis of elimination. The facts we have learnt are of no little importance. They tend to minimise, in the beginning of the family at least, the importance of the mother in relation to the young as compared with the importance of the father. It is this that I wish to establish.
And what we have learnt suggests the further interdependence, that does seem to exist among all species, between intelligence and good parenthood. Fabre, out of his wisdom and as a result of his great knowledge, says that the duties of caring for the young are the supreme inspirers of the intellect. Wherever we find devoted parents there also do we find lofty instincts. This is the second idea I ask you to accept. I think that we have proved its truth.
I may not stay here to point out the immense importance of these suggestions to the inquiry we are making as to the action of the maternal instinct, nor shall I pause to indicate the lessons that seem to me to await us from the curious transformation found in so many species in the duties of the two sexes. These considerations must wait until we know more. We have, I trust, extended somewhat, as well as rendered more exact, our knowledge on this complex and difficult question of motherhood. In the next two chapters I shall endeavour to extend it still further by a brief consideration of certain striking habits I have met with of parenthood among the birds and higher animals.
I am well aware that there are many people who cannot bring themselves to believe in, or even listen without impatience to, any comparison between the conduct of animals and that which prevails among ourselves. It is absurd, they will say, to try to explain the conditions of human parenthood by references to animal parents. I have no hope of convincing, nor do I much desire to convince, those who thus object. I would merely advise them to leave out this section of my book altogether.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER V
PARENTHOOD AMONG BIRDS
WITH FURTHER EXAMPLES OF GOOD FATHERS
Recapitulation of facts established—Reversal of sex attributes—Courting females and nursing males among certain birds—Attempt at explanation—Are sex-hunger and parental affection in conflict—A high standard of family life among birds—Few birds who are bad fathers—Examples of varying division of family work—A few birds who are bad parents—Where the mother takes sole charge of the eggs the father as a rule takes little interest in the family—The polygamous gallinaceous birds—Conduct affected by habits of the home—The Adélie penguins—Their co-operative child-rearing—The great emperor penguin—Scrimmage of childless mothers and fathers for possession of chickens.