THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 17 August 1888, Page 37

THE NATURALIST.

A Word About BirdsMfests. - In childhood's days we are told that birds build their beautiful nests by instinct, without tuition or experience, and as we grow to riper years we are fain still to cling to the poetical ideas of our youth: There is something very attractive about blind instinct ; it explains so much that is otherwise inexplicable; it overcomes all difficulties in a way that is delightfully pimple and charming. But the deeper and wider research of later times has shaken many a tradition. Alfred Wallace} for ekamplej has discussed this question of instinct in its relation to the architectural powers of birds. To attribute to birds the power of making a complex structure without instruction or experience is to Credit them with powers man himself does not possess. Observation confirms the statement that if birds brought up in confinement are not able to build a proper nest typical of their species there is reason to believe that the art of nest-building has to be acquired, just the same as man has to learn the aft of house-building — the one is proportionately as complex as the other. If a bird has no means of seeing a nest peculiar to its species, or of watching its companions in the act of building such a nest, tlnre is evidence to show that it is unable to produce one for itself. Every one knows the gay, sprightly little chaffinch {Fringilla coelebs), and most are familiar with its beautiful .nest — with one exception, perhaps, the handsomest example of bird architecture to be found in the British Islands, or even in Europe. In the fresh and vernal month of April, when the hedgerows and orchards are decked out in emerald greenery, amongst which bunches of rosy bloom blush in beautiful contrast, the little chaffinches, now married and settled, begin their elaborate and handsome nest. Sometimes it is built in the orchard, on the moss-grown iitnb. of an old appletree ; or in some convenient fork of a hedgerow bush, where the golden and silver lichens cluster thickly on every branch. Often it is placed in hawthorn trees, and less frequently amongst the prickly gorse, or' in a holly or yew tree. Wheferer it is built, the parent chaffinches always contrive to render it as inconspicuous as possible, by making it resemble in colour the surrounding objects. Where lichens cover the branches, the walls of the nest are studded with similar material ; when moss surrounds it, green moss alone forms its outer walls ; and I have known the nest of this bird to be thickly - sprinkled with little bits of white paper when the nest has been built in the branches of a hawthorn full of bloom. For nearly a fortnight the little architects labour assiduously at their beautiful home, roots, moss, and grasses, strengthened with lichens and cobAvebs, forming the outside framework, the inside being lined with a thick bed of feathers, hair, and the downy covering of various seeds. It will thus be seen tbat a bird like the chaffinch, which takes such consideiable pains over its work, and displays such considerable powers of foreI thought in weaving such a beautiful cradle, is a bird admirably adapted to uphold or rebut the theory of instinct. If a bird can build such a complicated house without tuition or experience, instinct must be the power employed. But let us follow a pair of young chaffinches I (F. ccelebs) taken out to New Zealand to gladden some British settler's eyes, and remind him of the " Old Country," and see what kind of heme the birds have prepared for their offspring in that distant clime. The striking illustration we give is a correct drawing of a nest made by a pair of chaffinches that had been turned out in that country and thriven well in their new home. It is built in a fork of a branch, and shows none of the wonderful neatness of fabrication for which this bird is so justly famed in England. The cup of the nest is small and loosely put together, and the walls of the structure are prolonged for about 18in, hanging dowu the side of the supporting branch. It more resembles in its structure the homes of the hangnests than the nest of the English chaffinch. With no older, and more experienced birds to teach them, with no nests 'of their own species to copy, it is clear that these chaffinches when in New Zealand were at a loss for a design, and the result of their nesfc-building capabilities is the abnormal structure here depicted. It is quite possible that the birds imitated in a certain degree the nest of some New Zealand species ; or it may be the slight resemblance one can trace in this extraordinary nest to that of the English chaffinch is the result of memory — the dim remembrance of the little home in which they first saw the light in a Surrey orchard, now all but effaced by new surroundings and changed conditions of life. In any case we have here a convincing proof that birds do not build their nests by blind instinct, but they do so by imitating the work of older and more experienced companions, aided largely by rudimentary reasoning powers and by memory. It is no more wonderful for a bird to have to learn how to build its nest than it is for a man to have to be initiated into the art of house-buildiner. What I want to impress upon the reader is that a bird's song, as well as the language of mankind — the art of fabricating a bird's nest, as well as that of building a dwelling — either by savage or civilised man, has all to be learnt I The desire to make a nest may be instinct pure and simple ; but instinct can go no imitation, memory, and tuition then become the all-guiding impulses.— Charles Dixon, in the " Leisure Hour."

" Rough on Piles." — Why suffer Piles ? Immediate relief and complete enre guaranteed. Ask for " Rough on Piles." Sure cure for ifcehfeg, protruding, bleeding, or any form of Piles. — Hostess, to young Spriggins, M.D. : "Doctor Spriggins, will you have some of the tongue 1 " Dr Spriggins, absent-mindedly : " Oh-er-let me look at it, please ! " "Rough on Rats."— Clears out rats, mice, roaches, flies, ants, bed-bugs, beetles, insect?, skunk?, jack rabbits, sparrows, gophers. At chemists afid druggists. — A journal tells us that a certain gentleman who came to London without a shirt to his back Las managed to accumulate a quarter of a million. It's onr opinion tbat he will never live to wear them out.