i8o BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



an aim and object, and so to be rational ones. It 

 may be asked, by what door could this intelligence, 

 in regard to actions originally not guided by it, have 

 entered ? I reply, by that of memory. A bird does not 

 make a nest or lay eggs once only, but many times. 

 Therefore, though the actions by which the nest is 

 produced, on the first occasion, may have no object 

 in them, yet memory, on the next and subsequent 

 ones, will keep telling the bird for what purpose 

 they have served. Such individuals as remembered 

 this most strongly, and could best apply their recol- 

 lections, would have an advantage over the others, 

 for their actions would now be rational, and, being 

 so, they would be able to modify and improve them. 

 Their offspring would inherit this stronger memory 

 and these superior powers, and also, probably, a 

 tendency to use them both, in the same special 

 direction. Whether knowledge itself may not, in 

 some sort of way, be inherited, is, also, a question 

 to be asked. If a bird instinctively builds a nest, 

 may it not instinctively know why it does so ? 

 If there is any truth in these views, we ought 

 to see, in some of the more specialised actions 

 of animals — and, more particularly, of birds — a 

 mingling, in various proportions, of intelligence and 

 blind, unreasoning impulse. This, to my mind, is 

 just what we do see, in many such ; as, for instance, 

 in the courting or nuptial antics, in those other ones, 

 perhaps more extraordinary, which serve to draw 

 one's attention from the nest or young, and, finally, 

 in the building of the nest. Not only do the 

 two elements seem mingled and blended together, 

 in all of these, but they are mingled in varying 



