Instinct of Birds. 99 



beforehand, equally well accommodated with the same 

 kind of nest, will build a hundred kinds ; but a thou- 

 sand birds of the same kind, without concert, in dif- 

 ferent parts of the world, some old, having built 

 many nests, some young, now building for the first 

 time, all without instruction, build exactly alike the 

 young as skilfully as the old. What but a divine 

 wisdom and skill guides the architects of the air? 

 The bird that I. r before seen an egg. sits 



upon the nest until the young birds appear. What 

 tells her that in that egg is a germ of life that the 

 warmth of her body will wake to activity? Up to 

 this point we cannot but regard all her actions as 

 blind, and unconscious of their end, as the act of the 

 fish and the insect that are never to see their young. 

 As she works perfecilv to secure an end, and is yet 

 entirely ignorant of that end while she works, she 

 must be under the guidance of a wisdom not her 

 own. Nor does it alter the question whether that 

 wisdom be the result of an impulse constantly im- 

 parted to her, or the certain, uniforrn result of her 

 organization. But when the young bird appears, it 

 needs in its helpless state a parent's care, and the 

 instinct of the parent becomes quickened and rises 

 to a higher plane by a conscious relation, while the 

 almost unconscious instinct of the young instantly 

 responds to this higher instinct of the parent. The 

 mother brings food, and every bill in the nest is 

 raised and opened to receive it. The old partridge 

 flutters like a wounded bird in your path to attract 

 attention, and gives the note of warning, at which 



