ANTICS AND ECSTASIES 173 



individual memory, intelligent and purposive ? since, 

 by becoming so, their ability might be largely in- 

 creased, and their improvement proceed at a quicker 

 rate. I believe that in these actions of the peewit, 

 which sometimes appear to me to stand in the place 

 of copulation, and at other times commence imme- 

 diately after it, with a peculiar run, and then go on, 

 without pause or break, to other motions, all of which 

 — even the curious pecking which I have noticed — 

 have, more or less, the stamp of sexual excitement 

 upon them, though some may, in their effects, be ser- 

 viceable — I believe, I say, that in all these actions we 

 see this process actually at work ; and I believe, also, 

 that in the nest-building of species comparatively 

 advanced in the art, we may still see traces of its 

 early sexual origin. I have been, for instance, 

 extremely struck with the movements of a hen 

 blackbird upon the nest that she was in course 

 of constructing. These appeared to me to partake 

 largely of an ecstatic — one might almost say a 

 beatific — nature, so that there was a large margin 

 of energy, over and above the actual business of 

 building — at least it struck me so — to be accounted 

 for. I was not in the least expecting to see this, and 

 I well remember how it surprised and struck me. 

 The wings of this blackbird were half spread out, 

 and would, I think, have drooped — an action most 

 characteristic of sexual excitement in birds — had 

 not the edge of the nest supported them, and I 

 particularly noted the spasmodic manner in which 

 the tail was, from time to time, suddenly bent down. 

 It is true that it then tightly clasped — as one may 

 almost call it — the rim of the nest, pressing hard 



