454 



The Bird 



animals, let us consider some of the more patent cases 

 where eggs are coloured for protection — where they 

 mimic their surroundings so perfectly that only the most 

 careful search reveals their whereabouts. Ostriches and 

 Cassowaries are two interesting examples, the former 

 bird laying its white eggs upon the white sands of the 

 desert; while the cassowary, in the depths of its jungle 

 home, incubates a nestful of eggs of the most exquisite 

 emerald hue, matching perfectly the green moss upon 

 which they rest. I knew of one of these birds confined 

 in a small paddock of green grass, whose splendid eggs, 

 measuring three by six inches, once remained undiscov- 

 ered for weeks, although laid openly upon the ground. 

 Special search was necessary to find even these great eggs. 

 If we walk in the woods in June and happen to flush a 

 night-hawk from the ground, the most careful scrutiny of 

 the place where the bird rose will often fail to reveal to 

 our sight what at last our fingers detect — two eggs, their 

 shells imbued with the colours of the forest floor. I have 

 led persons to a spot on a beach of shells and sand, 

 told them that there w^ere twenty-one good-sized eggs 

 within a radius of fifteen feet, and seen them utterly baffled. 

 The olive-gray, blotched shell of a tern's egg rests among 

 dark pebbles, or more often upon a wisp of seaweed, into 

 whose irregularities the hues of the eggs melt and mingle 

 perfectly. The Black Skimmer, that most interesting 

 bird of our coast, lays its eggs upon the bare sand among, 

 or sometimes in, the large clam-shells which the storms throw 

 up in windrows. Against man's systematic search their 

 wonderful assimilative colouring is of course often useless, 



