280 NATATORES. 



assist that of her own body in hatching the eggs. Now it 

 is true that vegetables, which have been cut down with the 

 sap in them, do, when closely packed together and moistened, 

 produce a considerable degree of heat ; but it would puzzle 

 a conjuror to warm himself by a bundle of dry leaves, put 

 together in the same manner as the nest of the grebe, even 

 though he were to launch it on the Atlantic. 



Those "feelings for a purpose" which persons of limited 

 knowledge and yet more limited understanding, are so prone 

 to assume upon all points connected with the economy of 

 animals ; and the zeal, often the fierceness, with which the 

 " follower " labours to destroy the purpose of the " leader," 

 and substitute another purpose in its place, are so perfectly 

 analogous to the gratuitous fierceness with which one igno- 

 rant nation wars against the idols of another, and in favour 

 of its own, even though more rude or ridiculous, so like the 

 hammer of Thor smashing the thunderbolts of Jupiter, or the 

 sages of one part of ancient Egypt girding on their armour, 

 and going forth to overturn the altars of the dog so that 

 they might set up those of the monkey, or the wars of stone 

 against block, or block against stone, among the American 

 Indians, that it is impossible not to impute them to the 

 same cause the fumbling of the imbecile mind in the dark- 

 ness of ignorance. If the grebe has a purpose a scheme 

 planned by forethought, with a view to a certain end, in the 

 covering up of her eggs when she quits the nest then, by all 

 means, let it be for coction rather than for concealment. Let 

 her proceed by chemistry, not by craft ; for if she must needs 

 be made " a man of," (for that is the tendency of the asser- 

 tion either way,) by all means make her a philosopher rather 

 than a smuggler, as it costs no more, and is more creditable 

 both to the bird and the bestower. 



This same " assumption of a purpose," is one of the most 

 important points in the whole range of natural history, espe- 



