Chap. XV. COLOUR AKD NIDIFICATION. 169 



objection to his view that many birds having both sexes 

 obscurelv coloured build concealed nests.-^^ The female 

 Horn-bills {Buceros), for instance, of India and Africa 

 are protected, during nidification, with extraordinary 

 care, for the male plaisters up the hole in which the 

 female sits on her eggs, and leaves only a small orifice 

 through A'ihich he feeds her; she is thus kept a close 

 prisoner during the whole period of incubation ; ^^ yet 

 female hornbills are not more conspicuously coloured 

 than many other birds of equal size which build open 

 nests. It is a more serious objection to Mr. Wallace's 

 view, as is admitted by him, that in some few groups the 

 males are brilliantly coloured and the females obscure, 

 and yet the latter hatch their eggs in domed nests. 

 This is the case with the Grallinse of Australia, the 

 Superb Warblers (Maluridae) of the same country, 

 the Sun-birds (Nectarinia3), and with several of the 

 Australian Honey-suckers or Meliphagidse.-^^ 



If we look to the birds of England we shall see that 

 there is no close and general relation between the 

 colours of the female and the nature of the nest con- 

 structed by her. About forty of our British birds (ex- 

 cluding those of large size which could defend them- 

 selves) build in holes in banks, rocks, or trees, or con- 

 struct domed nests. If we take the colours of the 

 female goldfinch, bullfinch, or blackbird, as a standard 

 of the degree of conspicuousness, which is not highly 

 dangerous to the sitting female, then out of the above 

 forty birds, the females of only twelve can be considered 



'* I may specify, as instances of obscurely-coloured birds building 



concealed nests, the species belonging to eight Australian genera^-^^^TT^ 

 described in Gould's ' Handbook of the Birds of Australia,* vol/i.^ -^ 

 p. 340, 362, 365, 383, 387, 389, 391, 414. Z^ O^^ 



1^ Jerdon, ' Birds of India,' vol. i. p. 244. /--C^ aP ^ ■ 



IS On the nidification and colours of these latter species, see (SoQdV 

 ' Handbook,' &c., vol. i. p. 504, 527. (uj ', L I 8 R 



\'^\ ""ft'*- 



