USUAL PLACES OF BUILDING. 59 



should add that the birds were occupied during 

 seventeen days in the performance of their la- 

 borious task. It was much to be regretted that 

 the eager curiosity of so many persons to see the 

 architecture of these indefatigable birds, and the 

 circumstance of the nest having been roughly 

 handled by some incautious visitor, occasioned 

 the architects to abandon all their labours, and to 

 seek for some more secure retreat in which they 

 could hatch their eggs, and bring up their young. 

 The above circumstantial account, of what I 

 cannot but consider a curious fact in Natural 

 History, appears to me to prove the possession 

 by these birds of a faculty of the same kind, as 

 that which in its higher degree we call reason. 

 Before this opinion is condemned, the instinctive 

 habits of these birds should be duly considered. 

 Their most usual places for building their nests, 

 are holes in trees, in the towers of churches or 

 old buildings, and amongst high cliffs. They 

 have also been known, in districts thin of trees, 

 to build under ground in rabbit burrows. Now 

 with these habits, which are their natural and 

 instinctive ones, the deviation from them as in 

 the present instance, shews a faculty of fore- 

 thought, reflection, plan and contrivance, which 

 could not have been derived from mere instinct, 

 If this is admitted, the possession of reasoning 

 faculties must be allowed. 



