258 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



his ' British Birds,' records the case of a Chaffinch which built a 

 very similar nest in England, with no such pattern to guide it. 

 On the other hand, birds which have been bred for centuries in 

 square boxes fixed in cages, and therefore have had no oppor- 

 tunity, for numerous generations, of inspecting their ancestral 

 homes, when turned loose in an aviary furnished with shrubs, 

 frequently build in the latter nests of the same type as those 

 formed by their wild forefathers. It would be difficult to say 

 when the Japanese first originated the little Bengalee (a true 

 Guinea-pig among birds), of which one ancestor — possibly the 

 only one — was in all probability the Striated Finch (Munia 

 striata). It has been bred in small cages, perhaps for a thousand 

 years. When it is turned into an aviary, and elects to build in a 

 bush, it forms the typical domed nest, with entrance-hole in front, 

 characteristic of all the Mannikins. The Canary, on the other 

 hand, invariably builds the cup-shaped nest characteristic of true 

 Finches. I have had these nests built in my aviaries year after 

 year by different birds, invariably reared in the ordinary London 

 breeding-cage. 



If we deny inherited memory to birds, how are we to account 

 for the natural fear which hand-reared birds always exhibit at the 

 sight of a Cat ; they can have no personal experience of danger 

 connected with the presence of that creature, yet all alike are 

 terrified at the sight of it. The Canary, which has been so 

 coddled by man that it has become stupid, and has been so con- 

 stantly accustomed to the sight of Cats for many generations, 

 that its natural dread of them has been blunted, is perhaps the 

 only type of bird which frequently loses its life through the loss 

 of the instinctive fear which might have saved it. 



It is generally believed that because in certain groups of 

 Weavers the male bird is accustomed to build the nest, therefore 

 the female is unable to do so. This I disproved in the case of 

 a pair of Pyromelcena franciscana, which I purchased about the 

 year 1885, the hen of which built and nearly completed a nest, 

 but unhappily died (as did the cock bird) before it was finished. 

 In like manner it is supposed that the hens of the true Finches 

 only are able to build, but in 1895 I bred Goldfinches in one of 

 my aviaries. The first nest was entirely built by the hen, but 

 the second nest was built entirely by the cock, before the young 



