NESTS AND BOWERS 69 



more to the neglect of the former. We see the same 

 principle at work amongst ourselves, for even in the 

 most artistic households, the nursery is usually a plain 

 affair compared with the boudoir or drawing-room. 



As bower-building prevails only amongst one 

 group of birds — not being shared by allied groups — 

 and as birds, universally almost, make some sort of 

 nest, we may assume that the latter habit preceded 

 the former. If so, the ancestral bower-bird, from 

 which the various present species may be supposed 

 to be descended, would have built a nest before he 

 built a bower. Is it not more probable, therefore, 

 that the new structure should have grown out of the 

 old one, than that the two are not in any way con- 

 nected ? The orthodox view, indeed, would seem 

 to be the reverse of this, for we read in standard 

 works of ornithology that the bowers have nothing 

 to do with the nests of the species making them ; 

 whilst, at the same time, complete ignorance as to 

 their origin and meaning is confessed. But if we 

 know nothing about a thing, how do we know that 

 it has nothing to do with some other thing ? One 

 argument, brought forward to show that the nests of 

 the bower-bird are not in any way connected with their 

 bowers, is that the former present no extraordinary 

 feature. But if the bower has grown out of the nest, 

 in the way and by the steps which I suppose, there is 

 no reason why the latter — and the bird's general habits 

 of nidification — should not have remained as they 

 were. As long as a single structure was used for a 

 double purpose, the paramount importance of the 

 original one — that of incubation — would have kept 

 it from changing in any great degree, and when 



