448 The Bird 



she leaves her eggs she backs carefully away, drawing 

 over them, at the same time, a coverlet of beautiful down, 

 the protective colouring of which is ample to shield the 

 eggs. Ordinarily this coverlet is rolled up at the edge 

 of the nest. It is to such a habit that the eider-down 

 hunters owe their supply. A grouse does not pluck the 

 down from her breast, but in devotion and ability to 

 remain close upon her eggs she has few equals. It is 

 rare indeed to find the nest of a grouse unguarded, and 

 the mother bird will all but wait until 3'our hand is upon 

 her before leaving her eggs exposed. 



The many species of hummingbirds lay the whitest 

 of eggs, but here it is the nest which is protected, — fash- 

 ioned of dull-hued plant-down, with beams and rafters 

 of cobweb, covered outside in our Eastern species with 

 lichens exacth^ like those which are growing upon the 

 limb to which the tiny air-castle is attached. The nests 

 of vireos, also, are much like their surroundings. 



Herons and egrets, pelicans, cormorants, storks, 

 swans and geese, all lay white or whitish eggs in open 

 nests; but obviously these birds require little protection, all 

 being able to defend themselves with beak or wing. Some 

 of them nest, too, in large colonies, adding the advantage 

 of numbers. The constant need of vigilance in protect- 

 ing eggs thus exposed is at once evident when mankind 

 — that disturber of Nature for whose intrusion she seems 

 never prepared — comes upon the scene. If we make our 

 way into the heart of a Florida rookery of herons, ibises, 

 or cormorants, many of the birds will be frightened from 

 their nests and the Fish Crows take instant advantage, 



