4 
president’s address. 
surely even a cage bird must have been hatched in one, and 
therefore, according to the argument, ought to have built one 
after the pattern of the only one it had ever seen. 
Let us consider for one moment what opportunity a bird 
has for learning the art of nest building. In the first place, 
the nest is constructed before the eggs are laid, consequently 
the young when hatched can have had no opportunity to see 
the operation of building, neither can they have had pointed 
out to them the proper and most likely places where to obtain 
suitable materials. Again, the principal characteristic of 
nests is the manner of construction, and with the same 
materials—moss, lichen, and hair—two distinct species will 
produce quite a different edifice. Therefore, when we con¬ 
sider that the young are often only in the nest from fourteen 
to twenty-one days, is it to be believed that they can possibly 
in that short time learn the art of nest building simply from 
examination of their home during their occupation, and that 
the details are so impressed upon their memory; in fact, that 
the young ones have learnt their lessons so well as never to 
forget it ? I think certainly not. To suppose birds build 
their nests from imitation and memory seems to me to at 
once allow them the power of reason, which I am certainly 
unwilling to grant, although I know it is a very debatable 
point where instinct ends and reason begins, the two being 
divided bvsucli fine and delicate distinctions that it is difficult 
to define a hard and fast boundary to either. Again, how 
can the young birds know what bird produces the feathers 
that line the nest they are in ? {Surely when the time arrives 
for them to build they do not hunt about until they find a 
facsimile to those in their old home, nor are the architectural 
details so vividly impressed upon their memory that after 
often a period of months and m some cases years they are 
able to construct a counterpart. I have no hesitation in 
saying that supposing you were to exchange the eggs from 
the nest of a robin and place them in that of a hedge-sparrow, 
that the young robins would, when the time came for them 
to construct a nest, make one after the type of their real, 
instead of that of their foster parents. 
Or if you exchange eggs with a blackbird and thrush, I 
am certain, although the thrushes were reared in the black¬ 
bird’s nest, they would in their own nests use the character¬ 
istic lining of their species, and would not use the only nest 
they were acquainted with as a model. 
In support of the imitation theory it is urged that the 
young birds have “an opportunity of examining old nests,” 
and also seeing some constructed prior to the time of their 
