ir bodies, turning round upon them in every
direction, so as to get it quite firm and smooth before raising the
sides. These were added bit by bit, trimmed and beaten with the wings
and feet, so as to felt the whole together, projecting fibres being now
and then worked in with the bill. By these simple and apparently
inefficient means, the inner surface of the nest was rendered almost as
smooth and compact as a piece of cloth.

_Man's Works mainly Imitative._

But look at civilised man! it is said; look at Grecian, and Egyptian,
and Roman, and Gothic, and modern Architecture! What advance! what
improvement! what refinements! This is what reason leads to, whereas
birds remain for ever stationary. If, however, such advances as these
are required, to prove the effects of reason as contrasted with
instinct, then all savage and many half-civilized tribes have no reason,
but build instinctively quite as much as birds do.

Man ranges over the whole earth, and exists under the most varied
conditions, leading necessarily to equally varied habits. He
migrates--he makes wars and conquests--one race mingles with
another--different customs are brought into contact--the habits of a
migrating or conquering race are modified by the different circumstances
of a new country. The civilized race which conquered Egypt must have
developed its mode of building in a forest country where timber was
abundant, for it is not probable, that the idea of cylindrical columns
originated in a country destitute of trees. The pyramids might have been
built by an indigenous race, but not the temples of El Uksor and Karnak.
In Grecian architecture, almost every characteristic feature can be
traced to an origin in wooden buildings. The columns, the architrave,
the frieze, the fillets, the cantelevers, the form of the roof, all
point to an origin in some southern forest-clad country, and strikingly
corroborate the view derived from philology, that Greece was colonised
from north-western India. But to erect columns and span them with huge
blocks of stone, or marble, is not an act of reason, but one of pure
unreasoning imitation. The arch is the only true and reasonable mode of
covering over wide spaces with stone, and therefore, Grecian
architecture, however exquisitely beautiful, is false in principle, and
is by no means a good example of the application of reason to the art of
building. And what do most of us do at the present day but imitate the
buildi