THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS’ NESTS. 225 
Levaillant has given an account of the process of 
nest-building by a little African warbler, which suffi- 
ciently shows that a very beautiful structure may be 
produced with very little art. The foundation was 
laid of moss and flax interwoven with grass and tufts 
of cotton, and presented a rude mass, five or six 
inches in diameter, and four inches thick. This was 
pressed and trampled down repeatedly, so as at last to 
make it into a kind of felt. The birds pressed it 
with their bodies, turning round upon them in every 
direction, so as to get it quite firm and smooth before 
raising the. sides. These were added bit by bit, 
trimmed and beaten with the wings ‘and feet, so as to 
felt the whole together, projecting fibres being now 
and then worked in with the bill. By these simple 
and apparently inefficient means, the inner surface 
of the nest was rendered almost as smooth and com- 
pact as a piece of cloth. 
Man’s Works mainly Imitative. 
But look at civilised man! it is said; look at Grecian, 
and Egyptian, and Roman, and Gothic, and modern 
Architecture! What advance! what improvement ! 
what refinements! This is what reason leads to, 
whereas birds remain for ever stationary. If, how- 
ever, such advances as these are required, to prove 
the effects of reason as contrasted with instinct, then 
all savage and many half-civilized tribes have no 
reason, but build instinctively quite as much as birds 
do. 
