Herr Badeker's and Dr. Brewer's Oological Works. 403 



shape, on a convex surface, such as an egg-shell, presents its 

 full form and dimensions only when placed exactly in front of the 

 spectator, and consequently that all the markings, except the 

 comparatively few on the portion of shell nearest to the eye, 

 seem to be more or less contracted or in profile according as they 

 ai'e situated at a greater or less distance from that portion. On 

 this principle therefore all drawings of eggs should be made. 

 Simple, however, as it would appear to do this, yet in practice, 

 as we can testify from our own experience, it is by no means 

 easy. Hence it arises that there are few persons who can deli- 

 neate an egg so that it may look like what it is intended to be, and 

 not like a representation of a flat surface. Mr. Badeker is much 

 given to this defect, and we see in numerous instances the spots 

 at the margin of his figures, which resemble eggs in being of 

 the same shape as their shadows, exactly the same in size and 

 form as those at the centre. This is especially to be observed in 

 figs. 4 and 5 of Plate VI., representing the eggs of the Golden 

 Plover and Dotterel. No amount of shading, no judicious arrange- 

 ment of light, will avail anything towards producing on a flat 

 surface the semblance of a convex one, so long as this first principle 

 is neglected. Plate VII. is devoted to the Common, Arctic, and 

 Little Terns, the difierent varieties of which we do not think have 

 ever been so well illustrated, in spite of the one prevailing defect 

 to which we have just alluded. Plate VIII. introduces us to 

 some of the Ducks. We are not sorry to see that our artist 

 figures mottled eggs of birds of this family, for we are inclined 

 to think that the spots so often to be observed on eggs of the 

 Eider, and occasionally on those of other ducks, are not to be re- 

 garded as monstrous, but as having the character of true mark- 

 ings. We doubt if eggs of the King Duck are generally so 

 much more deeply coloured than those of the Common Eider, as 

 would appear from Mr. Badeker's drawings. Mr. Hewitson 

 in the last edition of his work has figured (Eggs B.B. 3rd ed. 

 PI. CXV., fig. 2) one of the former, almost as pale in coloui* as a 

 Wild Duck's, but until a larger series of more carefully identified 

 examples than those usually received from Baffin's Bay are ob- 

 tained, we hardly venture to pronounce judgment on this point. 



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