224 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Peewit alluded to previously. He does, indeed, remark : " In 

 most birds probably— though this has been taken too much for 

 granted — these frenzied movements, arising out of the violence 

 of sexual desire, are more violent and frenzied in the male than 

 in the female." But he goes on to say : "In this way we may 

 see, upon my theory, the reason why the cock bird so often helps 

 the hen in making the nest ; nor is it more difficult to suppose 

 that the hen in most cases may have been led to imitate him, 

 than it is to suppose the converse of this." In the first place, it 

 is at least very arguable whether the cock bird does often help 

 the hen. From my own experience — which I quote with much 

 diffidence, well knowing that it will not bear a moment's com- 

 parison with that of Mr. Selous — I should have said that the 

 evidence went quite the- other way. With regard to the latter 

 part of the sentence, I admit that at first sight the complete 

 spring procedure of the male Peewit looks extraordinarily like a 

 rehearsal of what will take place by and by. There is the 

 gathering of nesting material, and the formation of a nest, 

 accompanied by significant postures. Here, on a superficial 

 glance, we have something that looks curiously like a " sugges- 

 tion " to the hen, that she may " imitate " in due course. 



But when this " converse," that Mr. Selous rejects, is 

 examined, the facts do not seem so plain. No one can have 

 watched an incubating Plover or other ground breeder at close 

 quarters without noticing the time spent by the bird in arrang- 

 ing the surrounding leaves, bents, &c, round the eggs, and it is 

 well known that all nests undergo considerable repairs and 

 structural alteration when circumstances require it. For in- 

 stance, I have known a Dunlin, whose nesting hollow was flooded 

 during the night, collect a rim of bents a quarter of an inch 

 high round her breast. She did not grasp the necessity of 

 raising the eggs themselves out of the wet, and consequently 

 both she and they were still lying in water, but in her futile 

 attempt to protect them and herself from the damp ground, do 

 we not see the phylogeny of the nest ontogenetically reproduced ? 

 I find no difficulty whatever in believing that the origin of nest- 

 building can be traced to the desire of the hen bird to shield her 

 eggs from the mud. It is the very obvious remedy for a very 

 obvious evil. But to imply, as Mr. Selous appears to do, that it 



