short, and weak, and almost hidden by feathers and bristles. They cannot build a nest of twigs or fibres, hair or moss, like other birds, and they therefore generally dispense with one altogether, laying their eggs on the bare ground, or on the stump or flat limb of a tree. The clumsy hooked bills, short necks and feet, and heavy bodies of Parrots, render them quite incapable of building a nest like most other birds. They cannot climb up a branch without using both bill and feet; they cannot even turn round on a perch without holding on with their bill. How, then, could they inlay, or weave, or twist the materials of a nest? Consequently, they all lay in holes of trees, the tops of rotten stumps, or in deserted ants’ nests, the soft materials of which they can easily hollow out.
Many terns and sandpipers lay their eggs on the bare sand of the sea-shore, and no doubt the Duke of Argyll is correct when he says, that the cause of this habit is not that they are unable to form a nest, but that, in such situations, any nest would be conspicuous and lead to the discovery of the eggs. The choice of place is, however, evidently determined by the habits of the birds, who, in their daily search for food, are continually roaming over extensive tide-washed flats. Gulls vary considerably in their mode of nesting, but it is always in accordance with their structure and habits. The situation is either on a bare rock or on ledges of sea-cliffs, in marshes or on weedy shores. The materials are sea-weed, tufts of grass or rushes, or the débris of the shore, heaped together with as little order and constructive art as might be expected from the webbed feet and clumsy bill of these birds, the latter better adapted for seizing fish than for forming a delicate nest. The long-legged, broad-billed flamingo, who is continually stalking over muddy flats in search of food, heaps up the mud into a conical stool, on the top of which it lays its eggs. The bird can thus sit upon them conveniently, and they are kept dry, out of reach of the tides.
Now I believe that throughout the whole class of birds the same general principles will be found to hold good, sometimes distinctly, sometimes