ii6 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS 



would not incubate a fowl's or a paddy bird's egg, and 

 it would assuredly decline to sit upon a c^olf ball. On 

 the other hand, were the acts of nesting birds altogether 

 mechanical, the young paddy birds would have been 

 reared up, and the substitution of two golf balls for two 

 eggs would not have been detected. There is apparently 

 a limit to the extent to which intelligence is subservient 

 to blind instinct. 



