Xvili INTRODUCTION. 
of blind Instinct* being solely employed in the fabrication of birds’ nests is 
not supported by one particle of proof. I do not for one moment deny the 
existence of true instinct in some cases; but so far as birds’ nests are 
concerned, no powers are revealed in their fabrication beyond those which 
we ourselves possess in a higher or lower degree. A young Duck taking 
to the water or a nestling Plover crouching to the earth and remaining 
motionless are good examples of true instinct, or action performed without 
instruction, experience, or previously acquired knowledge. In the same 
manner a bird’s impulse to build a nest is instinctive; but the means it 
adopts to carry out such an impulse are controlled by similar mental 
faculties to those possessed by man. Mr. Wallace’s theory that birds 
do not make their nests instinctively, but by imitating the nests in which 
they were reared—that if they never saw or were not brought up in a nest 
peculiar to their species they would be unable to construct one for them- 
selves similar in position, form, and materials—is probably the true solution 
of this interesting problem. 
The question arises, How do birds build their nest, and especially their 
first nest? is it by blind Instinct or by other mental faculties? To credit 
the bird with such instinct, which because it seems so self-evident is taken to 
be matter of fact, is to admit that it possesses intellectual powers infinitely 
superior to those of man; whilst the evidence that can be gathered on the 
subject all goes to show that its intellectual powers are of precisely the 
same kind as man’s, but some of them, of course, are infinitely inferior in 
degree, whilst others are unquestionably superior. Reason in birds can 
only be regarded as rudimentary, though there is undoubted evidence of 
its existence. The faculties a bird brings into play in nest-building are 
probably these: the one that plays the greatest part is imitation, and the 
next important faculty of the mind is memory, both of which are distinct 
from what is popularly cailed reason, which together with hereditary habit 
play the minor parts. All these powers are found in man, but, with the 
exception of reason, in a much less pronounced degree, especially in civilized 
man, in whom it has to a large extent replaced the lower faculties ; for the 
[(* Iam not able to understand what Mr. Dixon means by Instinct, and therefore do 
not agree with his remarks on this faculty in various parts of the chapter. I regard the 
word Instinct as the popular term for the mysterious impulses which scientific men call 
Hereditary Habit; and I think that it plays a great part, an overwhelmingly great part, 
not only in Bird-nest building, but in every other action of every animal, man included. 
Whether the explanation of Hereditary Habit be that it is transmitted unconscious 
memory (see Butler’s ‘Life and Habit,’ p. 198) is another question, All one can say 
is, that this isa plausible hypothesis which, in the entire absence of any other, may 
provisionally be accepted. If Hereditary Habit have the lion’s share in the production of 
a bird’s nest, we must also allow that Memory, Imitation, and a rudimentary form of 
Reason also play their subordinate parts.—H. 8.] 
