174 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



are stuck by the Shag amongst the mass of seaweed which forms 

 its nest, and here it does not seem as if they could serve any 

 definite purpose. May we not see in such things as this the 

 origin — one of the origins — of the idea of ornament. Something 

 felt to be necessary — large and conspicuous, but of no definite 

 use — has, one may almost say, the elements of ornament within 

 it, and even amongst ourselves, it is probable that many things 

 are fiddled about and " arranged " as ornaments, with but a very 

 slight aesthetic sense of them. Use passes insensibly into orna- 

 ment, as one may see if one watches the laying of a cloth and 

 setting out the things upon it. On independent grounds I came 

 to the conclusion that these conspicuous bleached spars stuck 

 amongst the brown seaweed of the Shag's nest serve now as 

 ornaments, yet surely we may see in them the survival of a habit, 

 once of definite service, to a river-haunting ancestry who built 

 their nests on the water, and thus helped to anchor them. The 

 Shag is more marine than the Common Cormorant, and there 

 are other species, if I mistake not, who live wholly or mostly on 

 rivers. An inquiry into the nest-building habits of the whole 

 family might prove instructive. 



Revenons a nos " podicipes." Judging by the insignificant 

 appearance of the platform — made up of at least twenty-eight 

 cargoes — and comparing it with the huge mass of the nest, one 

 would say that the latter must be the result of thousands of 

 similar loads. Yet I could see no trace of it yesterday, nor were 

 the birds working at it that morning, at any rate after 6.30. Most 

 birds that I have watched, build their nests almost exclusively in 

 the early morning, nor did I ever see these Grebes do so at any 

 other time. 



This morning I occasionally saw both the birds swim with 

 weeds to the nest, having one foot raised up above the surface of 

 the water. 



May 22nd. — Same place at 6.10 a.m., and find the birds 

 building another nest a considerable way from the last — i. e. the 

 second one — always in the same direction, and just ofi" the bank. 

 By 7 they had brought between them — as well as I could count — 

 exactly one hundred cargoes of weed, and by 6.45, when a slight 

 pause occurred, they had brought eighty-six. The last ten or 

 twelve of the hundred were brought by the male only, who 



