334 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
From winter he passes into winter. ‘‘Of wintra in winter eft 
cymeth.” 
Page 247. Nests and Hatching.—In the vast extent of the 
islands linking India to Australia, a species of bird of the family 
Gallinacece dispenses with the labour of hatching her eggs. Raising 
an enormous hillock of grasses whose fermentation will produce a 
degree of heat favourable to the process, the parents, as soon as this 
task is completed, trust to Nature for the reproduction of their kind. 
Mr. Gould, who furnishes these curious details, speaks also of some 
curious nests constructed by another species of bird. It consists of 
an avenue formed by small branches planted in the ground, and woven 
together at their upper extremities in the fashion of a dome. The 
structure is consolidated by enlaced and intertwined herbs. This 
first stage of their labour accomplished, the artists proceed to the work 
of decoration. They seek in every direction, and often at a distance, 
the gaudiest feathers, the finest polished shells, and the most brilliant 
stones, to strew over the entrance. This avenue would seem, however, 
not to be the nest, but the place where the birds hold their first ren- 
dezvous. (See the coloured plates in Mr. Gould’s magnificent volume, 
“ Australian Birds.’’) 
Page 266. Instinct and Reason.—The ignorant and inattentive 
think all things nearly alike. And Science perceives that all things 
differ. According as we learn to observe, do these differences become 
apparent ; that imperceptible “shade,” and worthless “almost,” which 
at the outset does not prevent us from confusing all things with one 
another, really distinguishes them, and points out a notable discre- 
pancy, a wide interval betwixt this object and that, a blank, a hiatus, 
sometimes an cnormous abyss, which separates and holds them apart, 
