Bird Architecture

Abstract

THE way in which a bird builds its nest, seemingly without instruction, thought, or experience, has been repeatedly brought forward as a convincing proof of blind infallible instinct governing it in its task. No more popular proof has been brought forward by the supporters of the blind instinct theory than that of bird-architecture. It is thought a wonderful thing for a bird to build a nest without any instruction, or without ever seeing a nest typical of its species. That birds are capable of such marvellous powers has long ago been denied by Mr. Wallace, and we have not a particle of evidence that such is really the case (“Nat. Selection,” and Seebohm's “Brit. B.,” ii. Introd.). Indeed the evidence, such as we can glean, goes far to disprove the presence of any such instinctive power. Birds brought up in confinement have been found not to make a nest typical of their species, but generally content themselves with forming a rudimentary structure—heaping a lot of material together without any design, or even laying their eggs on the bare ground with no provision at all! In my opinion, however, the conditions of life are so changed when a bird is kept in confinement that too much weight should not be attached to its actions in captivity, and the experiment has never to my knowledge fairly been tried with wild birds or birds living under normal conditions.