WAYS OF NATURE 
upon a ring plover, the fraud was detected. ‘The 
plover hammered the shams with her bill “in the 
most skeptical fashion,” and refused to sit down 
upon them. When two of the bird’s own eggs were 
returned to the nest and left there with two wooden 
ones, the plover tried to throw out the shams, but 
failing to do this, “reluctantly sat down and covered 
good and bad alike.” 
Now, can the action of the plover in this case be 
explained on the theory of instinct alone? The bird 
could hardly have had such an experience before. 
It was offered a counterfeit, and it behaved much 
as you or I would have done under like conditions, 
although we have the general idea of counterfeits, 
which the plover could not have had. Of course, 
everything that pertains to the nest and eggs of a 
bird is very vital to it. The bird is wise about these 
things from instinct. Yet the other birds were easily 
fooled. We do not know how nearly perfect Mr. 
Kearton’s imitation eggs were, but evidently there 
was some defect in them which arrested the bird’s 
attention. If the incident does not show powers 
of reflection in the bird, it certainly shows keen 
powers of perception; and that birds, and indeed 
all animals, show varying degrees of this power, 
is a matter of common observation. I hesitate, 
therefore, to say that Mr. Kearton’s plover showed 
anything more than very keen instincts. Among 
our own birds there is only one, so far as I know, 
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