We are assured that “the animal family is especially maternal.” So soon as a female bird has laid her eggs, she is animated only by one desire; neither the promise of abundant food nor the fear of bullets is able to divert her purpose. Although the males among the more highly developed birds assist in rearing the family, amongst various species it is only the female which cares for the young. The male duck has no interest in his progeny, neither has the male eider. Of the male turkeys Mr. Letourneau says that they do much worse: they often devour the eggs of their females, and thus oblige the latter to hide them. Female turkeys join each other with their young ones for greater security, and thus form troops of from sixty to eighty individuals, led by the mothers, and carefully avoiding the old males, who rush on the young ones and kill them by violent blows on the head with their beaks.[44] [44] _The Evolution of Marriage and the Family_, p. 29. The males of various other species, jealous of the attentions of the mothers during the time that their efforts are directed toward the maintenance of their brood, often kill their young. Regarding the subject of paternal care, Mr. Letourneau observes: “It is important to notice that amongst birds, the fathers devoid of affection generally belong to the less intelligent, and are most often polygamous.” By observing the habits of cuckoos the fact has been ascertained that among them the maternal instinct is almost entirely lacking. Of the cuckoo it has been remarked that it is a “discontented, ill-conditioned, passionate, in short, decidedly unamiable bird.” Its note is typical of its habits and character. The same abruptness, insatiability, eagerness, the same rage, are noticeable in its whole conduct. The cuckoos are notoriously unsociable, even in migration individualistic. They jealously guard their territorial “preserves,” and verify in many ways the old myth that they are sparrow-hawks in disguise. The parasitic habit is consonant with their general character. The species consist predominantly of males. The preponderance is probably about five to one; though one observer makes it five times greater. In so male a species, it is not surprising to find degenerate maternal instincts.[45] [45] Geddes and Thomson, _The Evolution of Sex_, p. 276. Regarding spiders and the greater number of insects, we are told that the males entirely neglect their young; it is in the female that the care for offspring first awakens. And this is natural, for the eggs have been formed in her body; she has laid them, and has been conscious of them; they form, in a way, an integral part of her individuality.... With insects maternal forethought sometimes amounts to a sort of divining prescience which the doctrine of evolution alone can explain.[46] [46] Letourneau, _The Evolution of Marriage and the Family_, p. 22.