270 INSTINCTS OF BIRDS. 



that they make a selection, in which they are 

 directed by powers of a higher order than those 

 of a merely instinctive character. 



Mr. White, in his Natural History of Selborne, 

 page 59, informs us, that in Sussex, where 

 there are very few towers and steeples, the 

 jackdaw builds annually under-ground, in de 

 serted rabbit burrows. The same author remarks 

 also, p. 175-6, that many sand-martins nestle 

 and breed in the scaffold-holes of the back- wall 

 of William of Wykeham's stables, which stands 

 in a very sequestered enclosure, facing a large 

 and beautiful lake, near the town of Bishop's 

 Waltham in Hampshire; and some birds, as 

 already represented, frequently spare their own 

 labour by taking possession of the nests of 

 others. 



In these instances there certainly appears to 

 be a great display of sagacity; yet there are 

 facts which seem to render it doubtful whether 

 the feathered tribes are capable of deriving much 

 benefit from experience, or of exercising any 

 remarkable degree of intelligence. Thus, birds 

 when engaged in the performance of their paren- 

 tal duties, expose themselves without hesitation 

 to dangers, which at another period they would 

 carefully avoid. Many species also, while under 



