Correspondence, Notes , etc.



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acock, probably of the same year, and in the succeeding spring turned

them out into an aviary with furse and box hushes in it. Materials of

suitable kind were supplied—twigs, roots, dried grass, moss, feathers,

sheep’s-wool, and horsehair. The hen soon began to build her nest, while

the cock did not seem to take the slightest interest in her proceedings,

Mr. Budgett never saw him with a twig in his mouth. In a few days she

had finished her nest, and Mr. Budgett having sought and found several

wild greenfinches’ nests, made careful comparisons. Taking them as a

whole, he says, the aviary nest was like the wild ones in every particular,

made of wool, roots and moss, lined with horsehair. A second nest which

the aviary greenfinch built was also perfectly typical.


In the same year Mr. Budgett reared from a few weeks old a young

hen bullfinch, and kept it in a cage till the next spring, when be bought a

cock, probably an old bird, and turned them together into the aviary. The

hen soon began to build, and finished her nest in about four days ; but she

used neither roots nor twigs, of which there was a plentiful supply. The

nest was composed of nothing but dried grass, with a little wool and hair.

She laid therein five eggs, two of which hatched, but the little birds soon

died. She then began another nest, this time a typical bullfinch’s nest of

fine twigs and roots lined with horsehair. Here five eggs were again laid,

all of which were hatched, and three reared. .She also built a third nest,

which was perfectly typical of her species.


Some birds build their nests true to type, without opportunities or

with but the slenderest opportunities of imitation or instruction. IL appears

to me that the evidence before us justifies the conclusion that nest-building

in definite ways is an instinctive activity ; but that it is modifiable by

individual experience. Whether the modifications are inherited we do

not know. It may be well to note how largely the performance of this

activity is due to internal impulse, the external stimulus being perhaps

afforded by the sight of the requisite materials.


Intelligence is so individual a faculty, enabling the organism to adjust

his life to his own special surroundings, that it is difficult to see how, out

of the somewhat divergent individualism to which intelligence tends, there

could come that stereotyped unifoimity which the nests of any given species

present. Imitation would no doubt tend to uniformity, but here, again, it

is difficult to see why a bird should imitate the nests of its own species,

and not the equally good or, perhaps, better nests of an allied species,’


I had not intended adding anything to the foregoing; but, since

writing, I have been recommended to read Mr. Charles Dixon’s Birds'

Nests; an Introduction to the Science of Caliolofiy, where the subject is

dealt with in the “Introduction.” J am surprised and disappointed at the

views and conclusions I find expressed there, and desire to state most

emphatically that I do not agree with them.



