ives at a well-known country, and directs his course so as to
reach the exact spot desired. To the Europeans whom he guides, he seems
to have come without trouble, without any special observation, and in a
nearly straight unchanging course. They are astonished, and ask if he
has ever been the same route before, and when he answers "No," conclude
that some unerring instinct could alone have guided him. But take this
same man into another country very similar to his own, but with other
streams and hills, another kind of soil, with a somewhat different
vegetation and animal life; and after bringing him by a circuitous route
to a given point, ask him to return to his starting place, by a straight
line of fifty miles through the forest, and he will certainly decline to
attempt it, or, attempting it, will more or less completely fail. His
supposed instinct does not act out of his own country.

A savage, even in a new country, has, however, undoubted advantages,
from his familiarity with forest life, his entire fearlessness of being
lost, his accurate perception of direction and of distance, and he is
thus able very soon to acquire a knowledge of the district that seems
marvellous to a civilized man; but my own observation of savages in
forest countries has convinced me, that they find their way by the use
of no other faculties than those which we ourselves possess. It appears
to me, therefore, that to call in the aid of a new and mysterious power
to account for savages being able to do that which, under similar
conditions, we could almost all of us perform, although perhaps less
perfectly, is almost ludicrously unnecessary.

In the next essay I shall attempt to show, that much of what has been
attributed to instinct in birds, can be also very well explained by
crediting them with those faculties of observation, memory, and
imitation, and with that limited amount of reason, which they
undoubtedly exhibit.

VI.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS' NESTS.

_Instinct or Reason in the Construction of Birds' Nests._

Birds, we are told, build their nests by _instinct_, while man
constructs his dwelling by the exercise of _reason_. Birds never change,
but continue to build for ever on the self-same plan; man alters and
improves his houses continually. Reason advances; instinct is
stationary.

This doctrine is so very general that it may almost be said to be
universally adopted. Men who agree on nothing else, accept this as a
g