Natural History. 441 



well concealed, such, for example, as the tomtit, linnet, &c. Lastly, 

 green eggs are met with among many strong birds able to defend 

 themselves against plunderers, like the herons. 



iii. A light green colour, verging toward a yellowish tint, is found 

 among the eggs of the many gallinaceae which lay among the grass, 

 without making a finished nest, which soon disappears beneath the 

 quantity of eggs ; like the hoopoe, the perdrix cinereus, the phea- 

 sant. The same colour is also remarked among several of the 

 palmipedes, which quit their eggs when they lay them, but which 

 are attentive in watching them, as the swans, the geese, the ducks, 

 the divers, &c. The eggs of certain great birds which make 

 their nests in the open air, but are well able to defend themselves, are 

 a dirty white, as may be observed among the vultures, eagles, storks. 



Among the eggs of a mixed colour, they are to be distinguished 

 which have a white ground, and those of which the ground differs 

 from white. The eggs with a white ground are those of the Eu- 

 ropean oriole, the long-tailed tit, the cole-tit, the nut-hatch, the 

 creeper, and the common swallow. Most of the eggs with a white 

 ground are concealed in well-covered nests. The eggs of a mixed 

 colour, and of which the ground is not white, at least of a pure 

 white, are those of the lark, the grasshopper-lark, the yellow ham- 

 mer, the wagtail, &c. ; then the crows, the jays, the thrushes, the 

 quails, &c, with most of the singing birds, the colour of the 

 interior of whose nest harmonizes with that of the eggs*. 



* We have inserted an abstract of M. Gloger's paper, from the attention which 

 his hypothesis seems to have met with from continental naturalists. For our- 

 selves, we have been led to conclude that he is among the number of philosopher* 

 who first imagine a system, and then would elaborate facts to support it. The 

 rooks, for example, build a nest particularly exposed on the highest trees ; the 

 jackdaws conceal theirs in holes, while the lapwing, woodcock, and snipe lay on 

 the bare ground, and yet the colour of the eggs of all these birds is nearly iden- 

 tical : again, the blackbird and song-thrush are birds of very similar habits ; they 

 build in the same places, but the blackbird lays a dull rusty-coloured egg, and the 

 thrush a clear blue one, with a few dark, well-defined spots. The woodpeckers, it 

 is asserted, lay white eggs ; they ought according to the theory, but their prac- 

 tices seem very different. The hawks, which are so able and accustomed to defend 

 their nests, we should expect to find with pure white eggs, but they are dull-co- 

 loured and inconspicuous — the buzzards, the most cowardly among the tribe, have 

 perhaps the most conspicuous eggs of that tribe. The magpie is a strong bird, its 

 eggs well concealed, and the nest fortified ; but the colour of this egg is dull, like 

 the rook, woodcock, &c. Two very similar eggs are those of the redstart and 

 hedge-sparrow ; the former builds in holes, the latter does not. The cuckoo very 

 commonly selects the nest of the hedge-sparrow, a spotted brown egg among 

 bright blue. Now if we admit that the brightest white eggs are to be found in 

 birds whose nests are the most concealed, as the king-fisher, wryneck, wrens, tits, 

 sparrows, and especially the sand-martin, may we not rather infer that, because 

 the interior of these nests is peculiarly dark, the bright white colour is convenient 

 to the bird, to enable her to distinguish them ? At all events, we must regard 

 M. Gloger's hypothesis as ingenious, rather than supported by facts.^EDiTOR. 



