418 The Philosophy of Birds' Nests. 



out of hearing of their parents very soon, for in the first three 

 or four days they have already acquired a knowledge of the 

 parent notes, which they will afterwards imitate. This shows 

 that very young birds can both hear and remember, and it 

 would be very extraordinary if they could live for days and 

 weeks in a nest and know nothing of its materials and the 

 manner of its construction. During the time they are learning 

 to fly and return often to the nest, they must be able to examine 

 it inside and out in every detail, and as their daily search 

 for food invariably leads them among the materials of which it 

 is constructed, and among places similar to that in which it is 

 placed, is it so very wonderful that when they want one 

 themselves they should make one like it ? Again, we always 

 assume that because a nest appears to us delicately and artfully 

 built, that it, therefore, requires much special knowledge and 

 acquired skill (or their substitute, instinct) in the bird who 

 builds it. We forget that it is formed twig by twig and fibre 

 by fibre, rudely enough at first, but crevices and irregularities, 

 which must seem huge gaps and chasms in the little eyes of 

 the builders, are filled up by twigs and stalks pushed in by 

 slender beak and active foot, and that the wool, feathers, or 

 horsehair are laid thread by thread, so that the result seems a 

 marvel of ingenuity to us, just as would the rudest Indian hut 

 to a native of Brobdignag. 



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, however, 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 in- 

 stinctively quite as much as birds do. 



Man ranges over the whole earth, and exists under the most 

 varied conditions, leading necessarily to equally varied habits. 

 He migrates — he makes wars and conquests- 1 — one race mingles 

 with another — different customs are brought into contact — the 

 habits of a migrating race are modified by the different cir- ' 

 cumstances of a new country. The civilized race which con- 

 quered Egypt must have developed its mode of building in a 

 forest country where timber was abundant, for there is no 

 possibility of the idea of cylindrical columns originating in a 

 country destitute of trees. The pyramids might have been 

 built by an indigenous race, but not the temples of El Uksor 

 and Karnak. In Grecian architecture, almost every character- 

 istic feature can be traced to an origin in wooden buildings. 

 The columns, the architrave, the frieze, the fillets, the cante- 

 levers, the form of the roof, all point to an origin in some 



