NESTS AND NO NESTS. 



while birds of the hawking type cannot pick 

 up sticks or gather straws on the ground, 

 and have beaks quite unadapted for dealing 

 with such intractable materials. The conse- 

 quence is they have been compelled to find 

 out each some new plan for itself, and to 

 build their nest out of such stray material as 

 their habits permit them. 



The night-jar, a stranded nocturnal bird 

 of early type, with very few modern improve- 

 ments and additions, solves the problem in 

 the easiest and rudest way by simply going 

 without a nest at all, and laying her eggs 

 unprotected in the open. Nocturnal creatures, 

 indeed, are, to a great extent, the losers in 

 the struggle for existence ; they always 

 retain many early and uncivilized ways, if 

 I may speak metaphorically. They are the 

 analogues of the street arabs who sleep in 

 Trafalgar Square under shelter of a news- 

 paper. The sand-martin, an earlier type 

 than the swallow or the house-martin, burrows 

 in sandstone cliffs, which are pre-human 

 173 



