4 8 SPRING 



both called cocks' nests, and observations confirm the belief 

 that in both cases they are made exclusively by the cocks. 

 The cock plover forms scrapes in the ground while writhing 

 and posturing in courtship before the hen ; and there is some 

 reason to believe that the plover's rough nest-hollow may 

 have originated in this way, and that the hen only later learnt 

 to use it as a receptacle for her eggs. The hollow scooped 

 by the cock plover appears to be a rude form of the highly 

 decorated playground prepared by the Australasian bower- 



LAPWING ON NEST 



birds ; and the cock wren seems to carry the same process 

 some stages further. He is not an earth-haunting bird, like 

 the plover, and so he builds his bower among walls and roofs 

 and trees ; and he makes a very neat and compact little 

 arbour, though it is only the shell of a regular nest. Here, 

 too, it seems that the hen bird turned the cock's taste for 

 rude nest-building to her own purposes and made nurseries 

 of his bowers. Most 'cocks' nests' never get any further, 

 and most true nests do not begin as 'cocks' nests,' but are 

 built with every appearance of being meant to hold eggs from 

 the start. But we have known a case in which a typical 

 'cock's nest' of the wren after remaining empty for more 



