48 BIRD WATCHING 



be seen on these open, sandy tracts, the abode of the 

 peewit, stone -curlew, ringed plover, red-legged part- 

 ridge, and other such waste-haunting species. But 

 the nesting habits of a bird must follow its general 

 ones almost necessarily in the first instance, and 

 though there are many apparently strikiiig instances 

 to the contrary, they are probably to be explained 

 by the former having remained fixed whilst the 

 latter have changed. No doubt, therefore, the stock- 

 dove began to spend much of its time on the ground 

 before it thought of laying its eggs there, and of the 

 facilities offered by rabbit-holes for so doing. That 

 the habits as well as the organisms of all living 

 creatures are in a more or less plastic and fluctuating 

 state is, I believe, a conclusion come to by Darwin, 

 and it agrees entirely with the little I have been 

 able to observe in regard to birds. I have seen the 

 robin redbreast become a wagtail or stilt-walker, the 

 starling a wood-pecker or fly-catcher, the tree-creeper 

 also a fly-catcher, the wren an accomplished tree- 

 creeper, the moor-hen a partridge or plover, and so 

 on, and so on, all such instances having been noted 

 down by me at the time. Most birds are ready to 

 vary their habits suddenly and de novo if they can 

 get a little profit on the transaction, and the extent 

 to which they have varied gradually in a long course 

 of time and under changed conditions is, of course, 

 a commonplace after Darwin. The wood-pigeon has 

 not yet begun to lay its eggs in rabbit -holes or 

 anywhere but in trees and bushes, but that it may 

 some day do so is not improbable, for it comes 

 down sometimes, though not very frequently, on the 

 same sandy wastes that are loved by the stock-dove, 



