Numbers Die From
Exposure In The Wet Grass, Or During Rain, For They Are Not Able To Fly
Up And Perch On A Branch.
The nest requires a structure round it like a
cage, so that the fledglings might be prevented from leaving it till
better able to save themselves.
Those who go to South Kensington to look
at the bird's-nest collection there should think of this if they hear any
one discoursing on infallible instinct on the one hand, or evolution on
the other. These two theories, the infallible instinct and that of
evolution, practically represent the great opposing lines of thought - the
traditional and the scientific. An examination of birds' nests, if
conducted free of prejudice, will convince any independent person neither
that the one nor the other explains these common hedge difficulties.
Infallible instinct has not supplied protection for the young birds, nor
has the experience of hundreds of years of nest-building taught the
chaffinch or the missel-thrush to give its offspring a fair start in the
famous 'struggle for existence.' Boys who want linnets or goldfinches
watch till the young are almost ready to bubble over, and then place them
in a cage where the old birds come and feed them. There is, then, no
reason why the nest itself should not be designed for the safety of the
fledgling as well as of the egg. Birds that nest in holes are frequently
very prolific, notably the starling, which rears its brood by thousands
in the hollow trees of forests.
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