HABITS OF THE PEEWIT. 139 



for they appropriate a little territory to themselves, into which 

 they will return and stand, however much they may fly abroad. 

 And here the birds return, in my experience, spring-time after 

 spring-time, so that I judge them to pair for life. 



Now I submit that these curious actions of the Peewit during 

 the breeding-time do support that theory of the origin of nest- 

 building which I have here roughly sketched — if not entirely, 

 at least to a certain extent. They point in that direction. 

 Here we have movements on the part of both the sexes, 

 which are obviously of a sexual nature, and. as to which the 

 word " ecstatic " seems hardly to be misapplied. They are 

 most marked (and only or most generally then dualistic) 

 immediately after the actual pairing, and just where this has 

 taken place they commence in the curious little run and set 

 attitude of the male. Out of and as a result of these move- 

 ments, a depression in the ground greatly resembling, if not 

 quite similar to, that in which the eggs are laid is evolved, and 

 into or about this is shown a tendency to collect sticks, grass, 

 or other loose substances. How different are these collecting 

 movements to those which we see in a bird whose nest-building 

 instinct has become more highly developed ! They seem to be 

 but just emerging from the region of blind forces, to be only half 

 purposive, not yet fully guided by a distinct idea of doing some- 

 . thing for some definite end. Yet it is just these actions which most 

 resemble ones which seem so purposive in the ordinary building 

 of a nest. All the others seem to me to belong to that large and 

 important group of avine movement which may be called the 

 sexually ecstatic or love-mad group. It may, indeed, be said 

 that, as the Peewit could not have devised a more effective way 

 of producing a cup-shaped hollow in the ground for its eggs than 

 by rolling or pressing upon it as it does, therefore the intention 

 of producing it is to be deduced from the act itself, and we have 

 no right to read any other motive force into it than this. But 

 (besides that this view bows out instinct) the motion by 

 which such hollow is produced cannot at all be separated from 

 that most pronounced, peculiar, and, as it seems to me, purely 

 sexual one of the tail, or, rather, of the anal parts, and 

 there is, moreover, the very marked and peculiar run with the 

 set, rigid attitude (that salient feature of a bird's nuptial 



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