COMMISSION OF ERROR. 505 



under the circumstances above mentioned the firing of 

 their nests in my library chimney a couple of terribly 

 singed starlings came out of my fireplace one morning, amid 

 a volume of flame and soot that drove me from the room, 

 and destroyed all its furniture for the time. The bat com- 

 mits a similar mistake when it hybernates in chimneys 

 in use. 



' By reason of their nests being placed so near the water, 

 the eggs are continually swept away' by summer floods 

 in our rivers and lost, to the destruction of the breed, in 

 the case of the common gallinule or moor hen (Montagu). 

 A robin built its nest in a steam-hammer at Hawthorn's 

 engine works, Granton, near Edinburgh, in the very midst 

 of both heat and noise, and of danger to itself and young. 1 

 The same bird builds also in other odd, unsuitable places, 

 where the nest is quite accessible to man e.g., in man's 

 bedrooms ( e Animal World,' White). A fly-catcher built in 

 prickly bushes, and near a wasp's nest, so that in its flight 

 it was entangled in the prickles and stung to death by the 

 wasps (Belt). Watson mentions swallows building repeat- 

 edly in unsuitable localities, undeterred by their successive 

 failures, untaught by experience. The republican sparrow, 

 too, commits faults as to position, including height (Houzeau). 

 A correspondent of the ' Animal World ' tells us that she 

 saw a pair of swallows engaged in repeated and vain efforts, 

 extending over a whole fortnight, at making their nest f of 

 damp, partly decayed leaves and pieces of manure, neither 

 of which would adhere to the wall of the house.' They had 

 the sense, however, to use clay, and straws or grass, when- 

 ever after their many failures these articles or substances 

 were supplied in a proper state of moisture by their sympa- 

 thising lady observer. It is an error of a similar kind when 

 the beaver selects improper material for its dam (Adams), or 

 when a captive one constructs a dam under unsuitable cir- 

 cumstances in its master's study or parlour for instance, 

 where it is utterly useless (Cobbe, Adams). 



Moreover, birds mistake their own nests, do not recog- 

 nise them sometimes an error that leads to obvious awk- 

 1 ' Scotsman,' June 19, 1875. 



