3t INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



opening: while owls and hawks, which scarcely quit 

 Iheir nests in the day, and pig-eons, which only lay 

 one or two eg-g-s and sit immediately after, have also 

 white eggs. The bright-blue, or bright-green egg, 

 again, belongs to birds which build in holes, as the 

 starling {Stiirnus vulgaris), or which construct their 

 nests of green moss, or place them in the midst of 

 grass, but always well covered. Almost all singing 

 birds, he alleges, lay eggs of a dull or dark ground, 

 and variously speckled ; and they for the most part 

 build open nests with materials similar in colour 

 to the eggs, so that no evident contrast is presented 

 which might lead to their discovery and destruc- 

 tion. We may add from Darwin the examples 

 of the hedge-sparrow {Accentor modiilaris)^ whose 

 eggs are greenish-blue, as are those of magpies 

 and crows, which are seen from beneath in wicker 

 nests, between the eye and the blue of the firma- 

 ment*. 



As this theory is but indirectly connected with 

 our subject, we cannot here spare room to examine 

 it ; but we may remark, that it appears to us much 

 more beautiful and ingenious than true : for we 

 could eiuHTierate more instances in which the prin- 

 ciple fails than holds good. Gloger's instances also 

 are far from accurate ; for though the kingfisher, 

 for example, hides her shining white eggs in a hole, 

 yet that will not conceal them from the piercing eyes 

 of their chief enemy, the water rat, which, like all 

 burrowing animals, can see with the least possible 

 light. Many birds, also, which lay bright-coloured 

 eggs, make open nests; the thrush, ibr example, 

 whose clear-blue eggs, with a few black blotches, 

 are far from being concealed by the plastering of 

 clay and cow dung upon which they are deposited. 

 The green-finch {Fringilla chloris, Temminck), 

 * See also St. Pierre, Studies of Nature, ii. 393 ; Note. 



