INTRODUCTION. xi 



Museum, and ultimately sold it for ^"50 to Lord 

 Lilford, one of our most distinguished British orni- 

 thologists. There are not more than seventy eggs 

 and as many skins preserved in any public or private 

 collection. 



A gradual depletion of species is still going on, 

 tending to reduce several of its members to what 

 might be termed zero-point, whose reproductive 

 powers are unequal to the task assigned by Nature 

 to fill up the gap occasioned by death. In course of 

 time these will be exterminated in their struggle for 

 existence. The Wild Birds Preservation Act is doing 

 good service, wherever enforced, among the sea-fowl 

 and waders which frequent our shores during the 

 nesting season, and has been the means of adding 

 to their breeding - stations and colonies in this 

 county. 



There is an opinion gaining ground and advocated 

 by some of our naturalists, that in the construction 

 of their nests birds are more imitative than instinc- 

 tive ; that it is rather from memory they build a nest 

 characteristic of their own species, both in shape and 

 material. Birds hatched in confinement build only a 

 rudimentary nest with the materials furnished them, 

 without any typical construction. Some young Chaf- 

 finches which had been imported to New Zealand and 

 turned out, built their nests with no resemblance to 

 the English type, either in structure or material. The 

 cup of the nest was smaller and longer, and made 

 to hang loosely down the side of the branch on 

 which it rested, in this respect resembling the 



