HABITS OF THE PEEWIT. 143 



perhaps) intelligent, to have originated in nervous and non-pur- 

 posive movements, is removed. My note, taken on the spot and 

 at the time of occurrence, is as follows : — 



" Instead of fighting, however, which both the champions 

 seem to be chary of, one of them again runs into a hollow — this 

 time a very shallow one — and begins to dance, but in a manner 

 slightly different. He now hardly rises from the ground, over 

 which he seems more to spin in a strange sort of way, than to 

 fly — to buzz, as it were — in a confined area and with a tendency 

 to go round and round. Having done this a little, he runs 

 quickly from the hollow, plucks a few little bits of grass, returns 

 with them into it, drops them there, comes out again, hops about as 

 before, flies up into the air, descends and again dances about." 



Now here a bird brings to a certain spot, not unlike such a 

 one as the nest is usually built in — approaching to it, at any 

 rate — some of the actual material of which that nest is com- 

 posed, and I ask if, under the circumstances, it can possibly 

 be supposed that such bird really is building its nest when 

 it does so, in the ordinary purpose-implying sense of the 

 term. As well suppose — so it seems to me — that a man, in 

 the pauses of a fierce sword-and-dagger fight with a rival suitor, 

 should set seriously to work house-hunting or furniture-collect- 

 ing. Such peckings and pluckings seem to me to partake of 

 the general frenzied character of the bird's whole actions. Yet 

 when once the object had been seized, associations might be 

 aroused by it. 



Supposing the habit of nest-building to have originated in 

 the way here suggested, it need not surprise us that natural 

 selection, seizing hold of such a prime opportunity, should have 

 entirely altered its original character, so that, now, such pairing 

 on the nest as does take place may be looked upon as a survival 

 of a past state of things. In one particular group of birds — the 

 Bower-Birds of Australia — such survival may have been more 

 than usually pertinacious, and there — on the principle of speciali- 

 zation being always an advantage — the thalamum,or pairing-place, 

 may have become, gradually, quite distinct from the true nest. 

 The habit of building more than one nest* would (as I suggest) 



* Common (as I believe) to many birds, and due to the mere force of the 

 instinct. Building, I am convinced, is a pleasure — not a labour — to the bird. 



