410 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



water in the case of an incuba.ting Grebe's eggs) :* (2) because 

 the demand here made upon avine intelligence is altogether too* 

 great : and (3) because the supposed effects, on a general 

 review, are not in harmony with the supposed cause. I may 

 here point out that if a bird only modifies, however intelligently, 

 the existing structure of a nest, however rude, it does not thus 

 originate such structure. To do that, it must, for the first time, 

 make use of a stick, stalk, stone, etc. Of course, when structure 

 had once begun, beneficial variations in it, from whatever cause 

 arising, would be taken advantage of by natural selection 

 without prejudice to my theory which is only concerned with 

 how it did begin. 



Miss Haviland finds no difficulty in believing that the 

 bird's nest was an outcome of bird intelligence. To achieve 

 doubt, she should compare the nests and nesting habits of 

 various species, for contradictions and irrelevancies would 

 then swiftly accumulate. But, in place of reasoning, we 

 have confession of faith, and no evidence is given; for the 

 case of the Dunlin that, when her nesting hollow was flooded 

 during the night, " collected a rim of bents a quarter of 

 an inch high" (which is not very high) "round her breast "t 

 is, as it stands, none. Where are the details ? Were the 

 bird's actions, " during the night," observed ? A flood must, 

 almost certainly, involve some motion of the water, even 

 if slight, in one direction rather than another, so that 

 some of these bents, if not all, might easily have floated 

 against the bird's breast, the very fact of which might 

 well have brought its instinctive activities into play. The 

 facts, as given, establish nothing, but upon them we have 

 the usual question-begging comment : " 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 the water, 

 but, in her futile attempts to protect them and herself from the 

 damp ground, do we not see, etc. "? \ In short the bird did 

 nothing effective, and Miss Haviland assumes that she meant to. 



* That the shell is the natural shield of the egg seems to have been quita 

 overlooked by Miss Haviland. 

 f ' Zoologist,' p. 224. 

 I Ibid., p. 224. 



