Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/198

174 are stuck by the Shag amongst the mass of seaweed which forms its nest, and here it does not seem as if they could serve any definite purpose. May we not see in such things as this the origin—one of the origins—of the idea of ornament. Something felt to be necessary—large and conspicuous, but of no definite use—has, one may almost say, the elements of ornament within it, and even amongst ourselves, it is probable that many things are fiddled about and "arranged" as ornaments, with but a very slight æsthetic sense of them. Use passes insensibly into ornament, as one may see if one watches the laying of a cloth and setting out the things upon it. On independent grounds I came to the conclusion that these conspicuous bleached spars stuck amongst the brown seaweed of the Shag's nest serve now as ornaments, yet surely we may see in them the survival of a habit, once of definite service, to a river-haunting ancestry who built their nests on the water, and thus helped to anchor them. The Shag is more marine than the Common Cormorant, and there are other species, if I mistake not, who live wholly or mostly on rivers. An inquiry into the nest-building habits of the whole family might prove instructive.

Revenons à nos "podicipes." Judging by the insignificant appearance of the platform—made up of at least twenty-eight cargoes—and comparing it with the huge mass of the nest, one would say that the latter must be the result of thousands of similar loads. Yet I could see no trace of it yesterday, nor were the birds working at it that morning, at any rate after 6.30. Most birds that I have watched, build their nests almost exclusively in the early morning, nor did I ever see these Grebes do so at any other time.

This morning I occasionally saw both the birds swim with weeds to the nest, having one foot raised up above the surface of the water.

May 22nd.—Same place at 6.10 a.m., and find the birds building another nest a considerable way from the last—i.e. the second one—always in the same direction, and just off the bank. By 7 they had brought between them—as well as I could count—exactly one hundred cargoes of weed, and by 6.45, when a slight pause occurred, they had brought eighty-six. The last ten or twelve of the hundred were brought by the male only, who