Abstract
THE philosophy of birds' nests and eggs involves questions far too profound to be settled in an hour's lecture. The extreme partisans of one school regard birds as organic automata. They take a Calvinistic view of bird-life: they assume that the hedge-sparrow lays a blue egg because, under the stern law of protective selection, every hedge-sparrow's egg that was not blue was tried in the high court of Evolution, under the clause relative to the survival of the fittest, and condemned, a hungry magpie or crow being the executioner. The extreme partisans of the other school take an entirely opposite view. They regard the little hedge-sparrow, not only as a free agent, but as a highly intelligent one, who lays blue eggs because the inherited experience of many generations has convinced her that, everything considered, blue is the most suitable colour for eggs.
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Birds' Nests and Eggs 1 . Nature 35, 236–237 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/035236a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/035236a0