OF SELBORNE. 63 



perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, 

 at that late season of the year, and from so midland a 



age of a very few days, they will sing a portion, if not the whole, of their 

 natural melody. In this respect, the power of observation and imitation 

 in the newborn creature displays itself most marvellously, and gives us 

 reason to attribute many other things to similar causes, which we might 

 otherwise have been induced to refer to instinct. Each bird builds its 

 nest in the same form, and of the same materials as its parent, and for 

 the most part in a similar situation. If the callow nestling is studying 

 and learning the song and call of its parents, from the 'moment its eyes 

 are open, why should not the more advanced nestling study every parti- 

 cular of the structure in which it is dwelling, and thus learn to build 

 hereafter in the same fashion and position, and with similar materials ? 

 I can entertain no doubt that such is the case: and if the eggs were trans- 

 posed into the nest of some nearly related species, and the produce kept 

 separate from all others of their own kind, they would, doubtless, make 

 their nests like those of the birds which had reared them, and would 

 adopt their notes. I have observed young blackcaps raised from the 

 nest in a large cage, in which the perches were placed very low, as soon 

 as they fed themselves, show a sudden anxiety at roosting time to find a 

 higher perch, and flutter about so intent upon this as to notice nothing 

 else, and at last settle to roost clinging to the wires near the top of the 

 cage. This appeared like a marvellous instinctive impulse ; but I appre- 

 hend that, while in their native bush, they had noticed the parents every 

 evening, at roosting time, fly upwards to a loftier situation, in which to 

 pass the night. I therefore refer this also to observation. 



I had some cock blackcaps and whitethroats, reared from the nest in 

 May and the beginning of June : they were fed upon bread and ground 

 hempseed scalded. The blackcap is naturally a great devourer of fruit, 

 the whitethroat indifferent about it; but, before they were taken, the 

 young blackcaps had been fed by the parents on caterpillars and maggots, 

 and had tasted no fruit, nor could they have had any, for none was ripe ; 

 not even strawberries, and those, on account of their acidity, they do not 

 touch. After they were grown up, having one day mixed with their food 

 some of the black currant raisins of the shop, I observed the blackcaps 

 immediately pounce upon them, but the whitethroats either neglected 

 them or took them up and let them drop. In this I think that I discern 

 the immediate agency of an Almighty power, suggesting the food most 

 congenial to this species ; for this propensity had not been derived from 

 the habits of the parents. It so happened that the hens of the brood had 

 been placed in a cage at a window of another room, to be fed by the old 

 ones, for some time before they were restored to liberty, for the purpose 

 of observing what food was brought to them; and no fruit was brought 

 to them, nor could any berries have been found in the neighbourhood at 

 that season. 



The next propensity that manifests itself in young birds, is the ardent 

 desire of washing themselves, in some species, and of dusting themselves 

 in others ; as, for instance, in the common wren. This I conceive must 



