176 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



really is building its nest, in the ordinary purpose- 

 implying sense of the term. As well might one 

 suppose — so it seems to me — that a man, in the 

 pauses of a fierce sword-and-dagger fight with a 

 rival suitor, should set seriously to work house- 

 hunting or furniture-buying. These wheat-ears, I 

 should mention, had been following each other about, 

 for the greater part of the afternoon, and though, 

 as hinted, not exactly fire-eaters, had yet several 

 times closed in fierce conflict. The manner in which 

 the grass was plucked by one of them, partook 

 of the frenzied character of their whole conduct. 

 How difficult, therefore, to suppose that here, all at 

 once, was a deliberate act, having to do with the 

 building of a nest, before, apparently, either of the 

 two rivals had been definitely chosen by the hen 

 bird ! Yet, when once the object had been seized, 

 associations may have been aroused by it. 



Facts of this kind appear to me to prove, at least, 

 the possibility of a process so elaborate, and, seem- 

 ingly, so purposive as that of building a nest, having 

 commenced in mere mechanical, unintelligent actions. 

 As further evidence of this, and also of the passing 

 of such actions into a further stage — that of actual 

 construction, more or less combined with intelli- 

 gence — I will now quote from an interesting account, 

 by Mr. Cronwright Schreiner, of the habits of the 

 ostrich, as farmed in South Africa, which was 

 published in the Zoologist for March 1 897, but which 

 I had not read at the time these ideas first occurred 

 to me : — 



*' The Nest Made by the Pair Together. — The cock 

 goes down on to his breast, scraping or kicking the 

 sand out, backwards, with his feet. . . . The hen 



