44 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
have already spoken, represent one path in which tho bird-keeper may 
be of use to his generation ; but there are many other points in 
connection with bird life which have been but imperfectly dealt 
with by students. In many instances incorrect decisions have been 
come to upon very insufficient grounds, as when a well-known 
ornithologist asserted that the nests of birds were not built instinc- 
tively on certain lines, but only in imitation of the nest in which 
they were reared ; in support of which assertion he cited the case 
of a Chaffinch imported into New Zealand, and presumably hand- 
r eared, building a nest with a long pendant mass of material 
below it, supposed to be an imitation of the nest of some native New 
Zealand bird. Oddly enough, in Seebohm’s “ British Birds,” Vol. 
II., p. 102, we read: “My friend, Mr. C. Doncaster, contributes 
the following note on a remarkable Chaffinch’s nest, in the Peak 
district : ‘ On an old thorn tree by the river Derwent, near Baslow, 
the stem of which was covered with ivy, I saw a long strip of moss 
2 ft. long and 4 in. wide attached to tho ivy. I did not suspect 
that it was a nest, but touching it with my stick, a Chaffinch flew 
off from a nest with four eggs about 10 ft. from tho ground. On 
looking closely I was astonished to find that this 2 ft. of moss was 
attached to and hanging from the nest, and that it was all manu- 
factured by the bird, containing also lichen and wool, and the 
whole was attached to the ivy by horsehair.’ ” 
Here, then, was a nest built by a wild English bird similar in 
character to that produced in New Zealand, but with no pattern 
in any English nest from which it could have been copied. On 
the other hand, it is well known that the domesticated Canary has 
for hundreds of years been bred in cages, usually forming its nest 
in a little square bos, the circular nest pan being (I think) of com- 
paratively l-ecent origin. 
If you turn out a pair of Canaries (bred in an ordinary London 
breeding cage) into an aviary in which there are bushes, but no 
square or round receptacles in which it can build, it forms a typical 
open Finch-nest in a bush, with no pattern-nest to copy from. In 
like manner, if you turn out a pair of Bengalees into such an 
aviary they form a covered nest with small entrance hole in front, 
just like other Mannikins, and again with no pattern from which 
to copy it. Now, we do not know when the Japanese first developed 
the Bengalee; even tho stock from which it originated is not 
positively known, but it is not improbable that it has been bred in 
small box cages for a thousand years, perhaps longer ; and yet the 
instinctive method of building has not changed. 
What is instinct? ft is an inherited arrangement of brain- 
cells built up in past ages and transmitted from parent to child 
through numerous generations. If a necessity arises instinct can 
be modified, the various methods adopted by the Swallow being 
an instance ; and it is possible that abnormal nests, such as the 
Chaffinch nest already mentioned, may result from some slight 
derangement of the brain distorting the inherited design. 
