110 NATURAL SELECTION v 
experiment to illustrate the question at issue has become 
available. Mr. B. T. Lowne, F.R.C.S., had three of the small 
ring-doves (Turtur risoria) which had been hatched in the 
breeding box of an ordinary dove’s cage. They were kept at 
first in a similar cage, with some hay, on which the two 
hen birds laid eggs and hatched some young. In the follow- 
ing April these birds were put into an aviary in the open air, 
in which was a large branch of a tree with numerous twigs 
and buds, and there was also a breeding box with hay and 
straw. Noticing that the older birds perched on the branch 
with small pieces of stick in their bills, Mr. Lowne supplied 
them with a quantity of twigs and small sticks, and the 
very curious and interesting result was that they built a nest 
on the branch and laid their eggs in it. But this was not 
effected without much difficulty, and only after they had 
received assistance. They first seemed to try to fix the twigs 
against the wall of the aviary or its roof, and waved them 
about above their heads till they dropped them. Mr. Lowne 
then fixed some perches for them lower down, and wove some 
small branches together to afford an additional resting-place. 
They took possession of this and again carried up twigs and 
dropped them, and Mr. Lowne then observed that while the 
straight smooth twigs fell to the ground those that were forked 
often lodged in the branches. He therefore supplied them with 
plenty of forked or branched twigs, and by carrying these up 
and dropping them (and I presume standing on them, or other- 
wise rendering them compact, though this is not mentioned) 
they at length (in three days) formed a nest “exactly like 
that of a wood-pigeon.” This “ they lined neatly with straw,” 
and each dove laid two eggs in it. 
This experiment, though very interesting, is by no means 
satisfactory or conclusive. In the first place, pigeons are the 
very rudest of nest-builders, and will sometimes lay their eggs 
on a dense flat bough without any nest at all. Then it is clear 
that these birds had no notion how to begin to build; they 
required to be assisted, and, as Mr. Lowne says, “as soon as 
a few branches had lodged below them, they finished the nest 
which accident had commenced for them.” 'Then they lined it with 
straw, which is not their habit in a state of nature, but appears 
1 Popular Science Review, New Series, vol. iii. p. 274. 
