ii4 Instinct and its Lessons 



i 



though it takes a different form. Approach a Blackcap's 

 nest too closely, and down come the old birds, within 

 arms' length, amongst the leaves around, rustling and 

 chattering, so that you cannot but attend to them, and 

 perhaps fancy you can catch them; while meantime, 

 amid all their antics, they contrive to have some foliage 

 ever between your eye and them, making it difficult 

 even to get a full view. On the other hand, just as 

 some tribes of birds have a style of plumage distinc- 

 tively their own, so their conduct in such circumstances 

 reveals a character equally distinct. The Titmice, 

 amongst the smallest of our birds, will defy an intruder 

 with a recklessness that has in it an element of the 

 ludicrous. Nothing will induce a sitting bird to come 

 off her eggs. A lighted match may be introduced into 

 the hole where they lie, and the mother will only peck 

 at the flame. I have known an instance where a 

 collector, wishing for a Tomtit's egg and utterly unable 

 to persuade the parent to evacuate the position, fished 

 her out with a spoon, but before he could get his 

 limed stick ready to procure the egg, she was in again. 



An animal, moreover, exhibits sometimes an instinct 

 in particular circumstances, to which nothing can lead 

 up. Take for example the case of the Ringdove, 

 witnessed by Waterton, 1 which elected to build in a 

 tree already occupied by that depredator of nests, a 

 Magpie. The Pigeon's eggs and young escaped un- 

 touched, and as the great naturalist remarks, the bird 

 somehow instinctively knew that it would be so, for 

 she settled there with the danger staring her in the 

 face. 



Of the bringing of examples there threatens to be no 

 end, so I shall limit myself to one more. The Cuckoo, 

 as every one knows, lays her eggs in the nests of other 

 birds. This instinct is a very singular one, and it is 

 hard to see how, on Darwinian principles, it could have 

 originated. Mr. Darwin tells us, 2 " It is now commonly 



1 Essays : the Ringdove. 

 2 Origin oj Species, p. 21$. 



