PREFACE vii 



presents special features and is an example of in- 

 dividual intelligence. At present our lack of informa- 

 tion relating to the manner in which a nest is made 

 in the majority of species is almost complete. The 

 building sex — the part played by the male bird, the 

 various stages through which a nest must pass before 

 completion, and a hundred other items require the 

 most patient observation. Even our lack of know- 

 ledge is vast concerning the nests of British birds 

 alone ; and when we come to exotic species, informa- 

 tion is much more meagre still. 



The present little volume has been written with the 

 object of guiding the student to an acquisition of a 

 scientific knowledge of Birds' Nests. It has been 

 necessarily a brief one, but many lines of original 

 research have been indicated, and some sort of plan 

 promulgated upon which the science of Caliology may, 

 at all events, provisionally be based. 



Charles Dixon. 



Paignton, S. Devon, 

 1901. 



