NESTS AND EGGS. 
trast with the brown clay and withered grass and moss of 
which the nest of the blackbird is composed than the light 
bine colour and brown spots of its eggs. Again, the brilliant 
white and delicate pink spots of the wren’s or bottle-tit’s egg 
would at once attract attention were the nests of each less care- 
fully concealed. The idea is, besides, at variance with the 
more rational doctrine, that the birds themselves are, like 
all other creatures, gifted with an instinctive power of selection, 
which is employed in securing the safety of their offspring. This 
faculty it is which leads them to build their nests in obscure 
and sometimes inaccessible places, and to cover them with 
materials calculated to conceal their stronghold from the pry- 
ing eye of curiosity. If the doctrine receives any support from 
the facts of natural history, these facts are found connected 
with those birds whose nest-building scarcely deserves the name. 
Those familiar with the haunts of the golden plover will have no 
difficulty in discovering the slight hollow which it has scraped 
in the wild moorland, but the colour of its four pear-shaped 
and grey-spotted eggs, the narrow ends of which all meet in 
the centre, will certainly not assist their search. Nevertheless, 
as a generally observed fact, the egg presents a decided con- 
trast to the surrounding colours of the nest. 
If anything were wanting, indeed, to enhance the pleasure of 
egg-hunting, it would be found in the wonderful skill which 
many of these little creatures exhibit in the construction of their 
nests, in the choice of situation, and in the choice of the 
materials employed. We recognize a provident instinct, which 
almost amounts to the higher intelligence usually termed 
reason, in the care with which they guard themselves and 
their young from the assaults of their enemies and from the 
weather. It exhibits the hand of the Creator giving its first 
direction to the art, which results in providing for the perpe- 
tuation of their species. It marks the all-pervading fiat 
which has declared that not a sparrow falls to the ground but 
with His permission. 
Among our home birds remarkable for the architecture of 
their nests, we may mention the magpie. As we have already 
seen, this bird’s nest is quite an aerial fortress. Built on some 
tall tree, whose large and branchless stem renders it inaccessible to 
the most daring of school-boys, the magpie’s nest is a conspicu- 
ous spheroidal mass, composed first of a layer of twigs, curiously 
interwoven and crossed, on which is spread a quantity of mud ; 
then is formed a dome of twigs of the sloe or hawthorn, loosely 
293 
