443 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV. 



to be more darkly coloured than those found in cold countries. There is 

 no such relationship between climate and colour. 



Lastly, if eggs were coloured merely with the object of protecting the 

 contents from light we should expect the colouring matter to be uni- 

 formly spread over the egg, or, at any rate, to be laid on more thickly 

 on the exposed surface. This theory totally fails to account for the 

 pencillings and other markings w r hich occur on eggs. 



The theory that colour protects eggs from living enemies accounts for 

 the colouration of some eggs, but not of others. I think it sufficiently 

 explains the colours of those eggs which are laid in the open and not 

 provided with the protection of a nest. Such eggs, in many instances, 

 very closely resemble thoir surroundings. On this subject I cannot do 

 better than quote Dixon, who writes : " The common sandpipers' eggs 

 assimilate so closely with the tints around them as to make their dis- 

 covery a matter of no small difficulty, as every oologist can testify who 

 has searched for them. The pewits' eggs, dark in ground colour and 

 boldly marked, are in strict I armory with the sober tints of moorard 

 fallow, and on this circumstance alone their concealment and safety 

 depend. The divers' eggs furnish another example of protective colour ; 

 they are generally laid close to the water's edge, amongst drift and 

 shingle, whare their dark tints and black spots cunceal them by har- 

 monising closely with the surrounding objects. The snipes and the 

 great army of sandpipers furnish innumerable examples of protectively 

 coloured eggs. In all the instances given, the sitting-bird invariably 

 leaves the eggs uncovered when it quits them, and consequently their 

 safety depends solely on the colours which adorn them." 



I trust I shall be pardoned for quoting at length so well-known a 

 passage, but I wish particularly to contrast it with another which I shall 

 later have occasion to quote. 



It seems to me that this protective theory explains most satisfactorily 

 ths colouration of eggs which are laid in the open. On the other hand, 

 I maintain that it utterly fails when applied to eggs which are laid in 

 nests. Take any instance of a common Indian bird which lays, in a 

 nest in a tree and I think that no impartial person will be prepared to 

 maintain that their eggs are coloured so as to be inconspicuous in the 

 nest. Could anything be more conspicuous than a clutch of bulbul's 

 eggs in a nest ? Naturalists have to admit that eggs in nests do look 

 conspicuous to us, but the adherents of the protective theorv hint that 



