342 BIRDS Of BRITISH GUIANA. 



be put down to either instinftt or habit, as the birds must have 

 realized that the eggs were different, it may have have been habit 

 more than instinct, that caused them to continue the incubation. 

 There can be no doubt, liowever, that from habit onlj', they roosted 

 and started a new nest in the same place, after the old had been 

 destroyed. This habit would have proved costly if the nest had 

 been destroyed by an enemy vyhich, after new eggs were laid, 

 •would have returned to repeat its performance. 



"Evidence also points out that a certain few of their daily 

 actions in the round of life are due, not so much to inborn instinct, 

 as many believe, but to habits acquired from a youthful training 

 from their parents, from experience, and from a wide sense of 

 imitating their elders. For instance, the young bird has been 

 taught how to catch insects. He knows thiil they are his proper 

 food, because he has so been fed from the time of hatching, and 

 he finally learns how to catch them, only after instruction by and 

 imitation of his parents. 



" These observations show, in tliis bird at any rate — though 

 probably in many others — that certain habits have been acquired, 

 due to the protection afforded by the advance of civilization 

 which, if the bird were transplanted from civilization to ancient 

 conditions, would be of great detriment to it. These newly- 

 acquired habits dominate its natural instincts.^' 



559. Progne tapera. 



Teee-Martin. 



Hirundo tapera Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 345, 1766 (Brazil). 



Progne tapera Cab. in Schomb. Eeis. Guian. iii. p. 672, 1848 ; Salvin, 

 Ibis, 1885, p. 205; Sharps, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. x. p. 180, 1885 

 (Corentyn Eivei') ; Brabom-nc & Chubb, B. S. Amer. i. p. 327, 

 no. 3336, 1912. 



Adult male. General colour above including the head, back, 

 wings, and tail smoke-brown; bastard-wing, primary-coverts, 

 flight-quills, and tail-feathers darker and inclining to black ; 

 inner webs of flight-quills paler on the inner edges and some of 

 the tail-feathers paler on the margins at the tips ; lores and 

 ear-coverts smoke-brown ; throat, lower breast, and under tail- 

 coverts white; breast and sides of the body earth-brown ; axillaries 

 and under wing-coverts dark brown, edged with white ; under 

 surface of quills and lower aspect of tail brown. 



