A Superior Male
The scientific as well as the curious are given plenty of food for speculation in almost all the ways of this bird. For the first time the other day I learned that its large bright wattle, suspended as a rule in an almost mayoral display, is neatly tucked up and apparently contracted when the bird is hard at work. The theory that this wattle is peculiarly sensi- tive to temperature and is specially designed for testing the heat of the heap seems to have no other foundation than as a plausible hypothesis. The degree of warmth that is held—at least in English conditions—to be most desirable is the human blood-heat. In lecturing the other day—not on this bird- " The Zoo Man," as he is familiarly called, quoted another bird of the Turkey or Bustard family as illustrating the rare parental superiority of the male. He is wooed by the hen, sits on her eggs and brings up the young! Our own domestic turkey cock will drive off even so dangerous an enemy as a fox from its brood of young.
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