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Dividend Two Directory 08
Page 05
I say _almost_ universal, because even among birds there are a few kinds which have not to this day progressed beyond the alligator level. Australia is the happy hunting-ground of the zooelogist in search of antiquated forms, elsewhere extinct, and several Australian birds, such as the brush-turkeys, still treat their eggs essentially on the alligator method. The cock birds heap up huge mounds of earth and decaying vegetable matter, as much as would represent several cartloads of mould; and in this natural hot-bed the hens lay their eggs, burying each separately with a good stock of leaves around it. The heat of the sun and the fermenting mould hatch them out between them; to expedite the process, the birds uncover the eggs during the warmer part of the day, expose them to the sun, and bury them again in the hot-beds towards evening. Several intermediate steps may also be found between this early stage of communal nesting by proxy and the true hatching instinct; a good one is supplied by the ostrich, which partially buries its eggs in hot sand, but sits on them at intervals, both father and mother birds taking shares by turn in the duties of incubation.
We found that day a palm with a bunch of small nuts which Benedicto called _coco do matto_; he said they were delicious to eat, so we proceeded to cut down the tall palm tree. When we came to split open the small _cocos_ our disappointment was great, for they merely contained water. There was nothing whatever to eat inside the hard shells. We spent some two hours that evening cracking the _cocos_--some two hundred of them--each nut about the size of a cherry. They were extremely hard to crack, and our expectant eyes were disappointed two hundred times in succession as we opened every one and found nothing whatever to eat in them.
It will be remembered from the British "White Book" that in November, 1912, a correspondence passed between Sir Edward Grey and the French Minister in London, in which it was stated that British and French military and naval experts had consulted together from time to time as to plans to be followed in case of war, and it was stated in this correspondence that in accordance with such prearranged plans the French fleet would stay in the Mediterranean to safeguard the joint interests there, whereas the British fleet would safeguard their interests in the north. Of this correspondence the members of the British Cabinet remained ignorant until the Cabinet meeting immediately preceding the written statement by Great Britain on Aug. 2 that in case a German fleet attacked the French coast or passed into the Channel, England would give all the assistance in her power, (British "White Papers," No. 148,) and it was also, of course, concealed from the British public until the speech of Sir Edward Grey on Aug. 3. It will be remembered that in consequence of this revelation the British Minister of Commerce, Mr. John Burns, and two other members, Lord Morley and Mr. Trevelyan, left the British Cabinet under protest; that the leader of the British Labor Party, Mr. Ramsey Macdonald, resigned from the leadership and that Mr. Arthur Ponsonby in his famous letter denounced Sir Edward Grey's practices.
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