A STRANGE BEGINNING 183 



one of these uses — as, e.g.^ the nest proper and 

 the bower — or that the one use should have tended 

 to eclipse and do away with the other, is, to my 

 idea, all in the natural order of events ; but this 

 I have touched upon in a previous chapter. To 

 conclude, in the peewit movements of a highly 

 curious nature immediately succeed, and seem thus 

 to be related to, the generative act, and whilst these 

 movements in part resemble that act, and bear, as 

 a whole, a peculiar stamp, expressed by the word 

 *' sexual," some of them, not separable from the 

 tout ensemble^ of which they form a part, suggest, also, 

 the making of a nest ; and, moreover, something 

 much resembling a peewit's nest is, by such move- 

 ments, actually made. 



Taking all this together, and in conjunction with 

 the breeding and nesting habits of the ostrich and 

 some other birds, we have here, as it seems to me, 

 an indication of some such origin of nest-building, 

 amongst birds, as that which I have imagined. That 

 the art is now, speaking generally, in such a greatly 

 advanced state is no argument against its having 

 thus originated, since there is no limit to what 

 natural selection, acting in relation to the varying 

 habits of each particular species, may have been able 

 to effect. Certainly, the actual evidence on which I 

 found my theory, though it does not appear to me 

 to be weak in kind, is very scanty in amount. To 

 remedy this, more observation is wanted, and what 

 I would suggest is that observant men, with a taste 

 for natural history, should, all over the world, pay 

 closer attention to the actual manner in which birds 

 do all that they do do, in the way of courting, 



