242 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



generation bird. Of course, this one case is not sufficient to justify 

 the conclusion that all female Bluebirds which hatch from albinistic 

 eggs will in turn lay white eggs." 



Mrs. Laskey, at Nashville, Tenn., has thrown considerably more 

 light on this question of inheritance; I quote from her manuscript 

 notes, as follows: "A number of individuals have laid white eggs, but 

 there has been no evidence as yet to show this to be an inherited trait 

 in this group. No. 36-146599, hatched April 1937 from an albino egg, 

 was found in 1939 laying blue eggs. No. 38-121000, banded as an 

 adult on April 6, 1939, was then incubating six white eggs. In 1940, 

 one of those hatched from this set, N 6, laid five blue eggs in the ad- 

 joining meadow. The following year N 6 had moved on to the next 

 meadow, laying six blue eggs in the second nesting period. From this 

 hatch, N 22 was found in 1942 as she incubated six blue eggs. Thus, 

 daughter and granddaughter of the white-egg-laying female were laying 

 normally colored eggs. 



"Five birds, known to have been hatched from blue eggs, laid white 

 eggs (N 1, N 11, N 13, N 18, N 21). Only one, N 11, was found in 

 two seasons. In April 1940, at 253 days of age, she began her first set 

 of five in the box where she had been hatched from a set of four blue 

 eggs. For the season she laid 5-5-5-4 white eggs, with only the third 

 successful. She deserted her first two sets soon after completion and 

 the young of the fourth set when they were five days old. She reap- 

 peared in the box in March 1941, laying five albino eggs, one blue- 

 tinged. Four young were raised; one egg was sterile. On May 6 she 

 began her second set of five white eggs but disappeared at the time 

 this set was hatching. 



"In 1942 there were more white eggs laid than in any previous 

 season. They consisted of three sets of four, eight sets of five, two 

 sets of six, and one set of seven. This total of 71 white eggs was 9.1 

 percent of the 774 laid this season. Incidentally, sets of seven blue- 

 bird eggs are rare; the 1938 and the 1942 sets are the only records in 

 the Nashville area." 



The bluebird is a persistent layer; if a set of eggs is taken, another 

 will be laid within a very short time, as the two following accounts will 

 show. Guy H. Briggs (1902) reports taking five sets of white eggs 

 from one pair of birds during one season in a Maine orchard; the sets 

 were all of five eggs, which he described as smooth and glossy, like 

 woodpeckers' eggs. The sets were taken on May 1, May 27, June 13, 

 June 24, and July 6, the nests being taken with the sets. Two of the 

 sets were in the same cavity in an apple tree, and two others were in 

 the same nest box. Between the last two dates only 1 1 days were re- 



