8 BOMBAY DUCKS 



imitation dove's nest you have only to upset half a box 

 of matches. " As a boy," he writes, " I have sometimes 

 discovered the nest by seeing the eggs in it from below ! 

 It is a mere skeleton, a network, and in its way a 

 miracle. In fact, it is not a nest at all." This, of 

 course, is not the poet's idea of the nest. The bard 

 pictures it as a delightfully woven structure, beautifully 

 lined with feathers and down. Saith Keats : — 



" Warm as a dove's nest among summer trees." 



A draughtier abode than a dove's nest it would be 

 difficult to imagine. To the naturalist, the ghost of a 

 nest constructed by the dove is most interesting. It 

 possibly throws some light on the origin of the wonderful 

 nest-building instinct. How this instinct arose is to me 

 one of the most difficult problems in natural history. 

 The primitive bird undoubtedly laid its eggs on the 

 ground — on the sand, or among rocks and stones. 



Then some bird learned to lay them in the grass. 

 Next, perhaps, some species deposited them on a dense 

 shrub. Eggs so laid would be apt to slip down and be 

 lost, so any tendency to make a surface for the eggs by 

 laying a few sticks upon the bush would be to preserve 

 by the action of natural selection. By degrees the 

 instinct must have developed until we eventually arrive 

 at the wonderful nest of the weaver bird. 



This is all pure conjecture, but it seems to me that 

 the nest-building instinct must have originated in some 

 such manner. Perhaps the dove has kept to the 

 methods of its early ancestors, while most of the other 

 birds have improved upon them. There is much to be 



