248 NASCENT REASON, EMOTION, 



of a reasoned and volitional adaptation of means to bring 

 about such an end. T. Edwards says : 



" Passing along the sea-shore on the west of Banff, I observed 

 on the sands, at a considerable distance before me, two birds beside 

 a large-looking object. Stooping down with my gun upon my 

 back, prepared for action, I managed to crawl through the bents 

 and across the shingle for a considerable way, when I at length 

 came in sight of the two little workers, who were busily endeavour- 

 ing to turn over a dead fish which was fully six times their size. I 

 immediately recognized them as turnstones. Not wishing to dis- 

 turb them, anxious at the same time to witness their operations, and 

 observing that a few paces nearer them there was a deep hollow 

 among the shingle, I contrived to creep into it unobserved. I was 

 now distant from them but about ten yards, and had a distinct and 

 unobserved view of all their movements. . . Having got fairly settled 

 down in my pebbly observatory, I turned my undivided attention 

 to the birds before me. They were boldly pushing at the fish with 

 their bills and then with their breasts ; their endeavours, however, 

 were in vain the object remained immovable. On this they both 

 went round to the opposite side, and began to scrape away the sand 

 from close beneath the fish. After removing a considerable 

 quantity, they again came back to the spot which they had left, 

 and went once more to work with their bills and breasts, but with 

 as little apparent success as formerly. Nothing daunted, however, 

 they ran round a second time to the other side, and recommenced 

 their trenching operations, with a seeming determination not to 

 be baffled in their object, which evidently was to undermine the 

 dead animal before them, in order that it might be the more easily 

 overturned. While they were thus employed, and after they had 

 laboured in this manner, at both sides alternately, for nearly half- 

 an-hour, they were joined by another of their own species, which 

 came flying with rapidity from the neighbouring rocks. Its timely 



arrival was hailed with evident signs of joy Their mutual 



congratulations being over, they all three fell to work, and after 

 labouring vigorously for a few minutes in removing the sand, they 

 came round to the other side, and, putting their breasts simul- 

 taneously to the fish, they succeeded in raising it some inches from 

 the sand, but were unable to turn it over. It went down again to 

 its sandy bed, to the manifest disappointment of the three. Best- 

 ing, however, for a space, and without moving from their respective 



