4-54 The Descent of Man. Part II. 



In regard to birds which build in holes or construct domed 

 nests, other advantages, as Mr. Wallace remarks, besides con- 

 cealment are gained, such as shelter from the rain, greater 

 warmth, and in hot countries protection from the sun ; u so that 

 it is no valid objection to his view that many birds having both 

 sexes obscurely coloured build concealed nests. 15 The female 

 Horn-bill (Buceros), for instance, of India and Africa is protected 

 during incubation with extraordinary care, for she plasters up 

 with her own excrement the orifice of the hole in which she sits 

 on her eggs, leaving only a small orifice through which the male 

 feeds her ; she is thus kept a close prisoner during the whole 

 period of incubation ; 1G yet female horn-bills are not more con- 

 spicuously coloured than many other birds of equal size which 

 build oi^en 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 

 Grallinaa of Australia, the Superb Warblers (Maluridas) of the 

 same country, the Sun-birds (Nectariniee), and with several of 

 the Australian Honey-suckers or Meliphagidae. 17 



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 which is constructed. About forty of our 

 British birds (excluding those of large size which could defend 

 themselves) build in holes in banks, rocks, or trees, or construct 

 domed nests. If we take the colours of the female goldfinch, 

 bullfinch, or blackbird, as a standard of the degree of con- 

 spicuousness, which is not highly dangerous to the sitting 

 female, then out of the above forty birds, the females of only 

 twelve can be considered as conspicuous to a dangerous degree, 



tnmena macroura has the head and very hot weather, when the sun 

 tail dark blue with reddish loins; was shining brightly, as it' their 

 the female Lamporhis porphyrurus rggs would be thus injured, than 

 is blackish-green on the upper during cool, cloudy, or rainy weather, 

 surface, with the lores and sides of 15 I may specify, as' instances of 

 the throat crimson ; the female dull-coloured birds building con- 

 Eulampis jugukzris has the top of cealed nests, the species belono-mg 

 the head and back green, but the to eight Australian genera, de- 

 loins and the tail are crimson. scribed in Gould's ' Handbook of the 

 Many other instances of highly Birds of Australia,' vol. i. pp. 340, 

 L-onspicuous females could be given. 362. 365, 383, 387, 389, 391, 414. 

 See Mr. Gould's magnificent work 1G Mr. C. Home, ' Proc. Zooloo-. 

 on this family. Soc' 1869, p. 243. 



14 Mr. Salvin noticed in Guate- 17 On the nidirication and colours 



mala ('Ibis,' 1864, p. 375) that of these latter species, see Gould's 



humming-birds were much more ' Handbook,' &c., vol. i. pp. 504, 527. 

 unwilling to 'ea-^ their ne.ts during 



