SOMETHING TO LOOK FOR 287 



wonder, should not be more carefully and con- 

 tinuously observed, with a view to detecting some- 

 thing in their own daily routine, which might throw 

 light on the origin of such eccentricities — something 

 either just starting along, or already some way on 

 the road to, the wonderful house at which their kins- 

 folk have arrived. Unfortunately, whilst the end 

 arouses great interest, the beginnings, or, even, some- 

 thing more than the beginnings, either escape obser- 

 vation altogether, or are not observed properly. 

 When a thing, by its saliency, has been forced upon 

 our notice, it is comparatively easy to find out more 

 about it ; but when it is not known whether there 

 is anything or not, but only that, if there is, it 

 cannot be very remarkable, the initial incentive to 

 investigation seems wanting. Yet the starting-place 

 and the half-way house are as interesting as the final 

 goal, and our efforts to find the former, in particular, 

 ought to be unremitting. In a previous chapter, 

 I have given my reasons for thinking that we might 

 learn something in regard to the origin of the 

 bower-building instinct — that crowning wonder, per- 

 haps, of all that is wonderful in birds — by making 

 a closer study of rooks. But for this proper obser- 

 vatories are needed, and whilst those who possess 

 both the means of making these and the rookeries 

 in which to make them, are not, as a rule, interested, 

 those who are have too often neither the one nor 

 the other — I, at least, stand in this predicament. 



It may be thought that the above-described 

 sudden excitement and activity on the part of 

 these two moorhens was, more probably, of a nuptial 

 character ; but I do not myself think so, for the 



