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faculties at all approaching in variety and extent to those of man. I simply hold that the phenomena presented by their mode of building their nests, when fairly compared with those exhibited by the great mass of mankind in building their houses, indicate no essential difference in the kind or nature of the mental facul ties employed. If instinct means anything, it means the capacity to perform some complex act without teaching or experience. It implies innate ideas of a very definite kind, and, if established, would overthrow Mr. Mill's sensationalism and all the modern philosophy of experience. That the existence of true instinct may be established in other cases is not impossible, but in the particular instance of birds' nests, which is usually considered one of its strongholds, I cannot find a particle of evidence to show the existence of anything beyond those lower reasoning and imitative powers, which animals are universally admitted to possess.

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VII.

A THEORY OF BIRDS' NESTS;

SHOWING THE RELATION OF CERTAIN DIFFERENCES OF COLOUR IN FEMALE BIRDS, TO THEIR MODE OF NIDIFICATION.

THE habit of forming a more or less elaborate structure for the reception of their eggs and young, must undoubtedly be looked upon as one of the most remarkable and interesting characteristics of the class of birds. In other classes of vertebrate animals, such structures are few and exceptional, and never attain to the same degree of completeness and beauty. Birds' nests have, accordingly, attracted much attention, and have furnished one of the stock arguments to prove the existence of a blind but unerring instinct in the lower animals. The very general belief that every bird is enabled to build its nest, not by the ordinary faculties of observation, memory, and imitation, but by means of some innate and mysterious impulse, has had the bad effect of withdrawing attention from the very evident relation that exists between the structure, habits, and intelligence of birds, and the kind of nests they construct.

In the preceding essay I have detailed several of these relations, and they teach us, that a consideration of the structure, the food, and other specialities of a

bird's existence, will give a clue, and sometimes a very complete one, to the reason why it builds its nest of certain materials, in a definite situation, and in a more or less elaborate manner.

I now propose to consider the question from a more general point of view, and to discuss its application to some important problems in the natural history of birds.

Changed Conditions and persistent Habits as influencing Nidification.

Besides the causes above alluded to, there are two other factors whose effect in any particular case we can only vaguely guess at, but which must have had an important influence in determining the existing details of nidification. These are--changed conditions of existence, whether internal or external, and the influence of hereditary or imitative habit; the first inducing alterations in accordance with changes of organic structure, of climate, or of the surrounding fauna and flora; the other preserving the peculiarities so produced, even when changed conditions render them no longer necessary. Many facts have been already given which show that birds do adapt their nests to the situations in which they place them, and the adoption of eaves, chimneys, and boxes, by swallows, wrens, and many other birds, shows that they are always ready to take advantage of changed conditions. It is probable, therefore, that a permanent change of climate would cause many birds to modify the form or

materials of their abodes, so as better to protect their young. The introduction of new enemies to eggs or young birds, might introduce many alterations tending to their better concealment. A change in the vegetation of a country, would often necessitate the use of new materials. So, also, we may be sure, that as a species slowly became modified in any external or internal characters, it would necessarily change in some degree its mode of building. This effect would be produced by modifications of the most varied nature; such as the power and rapidity of flight, which must often determine the distance to which a bird will go to obtain materials for its nest; the capacity of sustaining itself almost motionless in the air, which must sometimes determine the position in which a nest can be built; the strength and grasping power of the foot in relation to the weight of the bird, a power absolutely essential to the constructor of a delicately-woven and well-finished nest; the length and fineness of the beak, which has to be used like a needle in building the best textile nests; the length and mobility of the neck, which is needful for the same purpose; the possession of a salivary secretion like that used in the nests of many of the swifts and swallows, as well as that of the song-thrush―peculiarities of habits, which ultimately depend on structure, and which often determine the material most frequently met with or most easily to be obtained. Modifications in any of these characters would necessarily lead, either to a change in the materials of the nest, or in the mode of combin

ing them in the finished structure, or in the form or position of that structure.

During all these changes, however, certain specialities of nest-building would continue, for a shorter or a longer time after the causes which had necessitated them had passed away. Such records of a vanished past meet us everywhere, even in man's works, notwithstanding his boasted reason. Not only are the main features of Greek architecture, mere reproductions in stone of what were originally parts of a wooden building, but our modern copyists of Gothic architecture often build solid buttresses capped with weighty pinnacles, to support a wooden roof which has no outward thrust to render them necessary; and even think they ornament their buildings by adding sham spouts of carved stone, while modern waterpipes, stuck on without any attempt at harmony, do the real duty. So, when railways superseded coaches, it was thought necessary to build the first-class carriages to imitate a number of coach-bodies joined together; and the arm-loops for each passenger to hold on by, which were useful when bad roads made every journey a succession of jolts and lurches, were continued on our smooth macadamised mail-routes, and, still more absurdly, remain to this day in our railway carriages, the relic of a kind of locomotion we can now hardly realize. Another good example is to be seen in our boots. When elastic sides came into fashion we had been so long used to fasten them with buttons or laces, that a boot without either looked bare and unfinished,

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