THE OOLOGIST 



193 



Cuckoo, overlooking or miniinizinK 

 the possible fact that the markings 

 on the small egg were composed of a 

 color pigment foreign to the pro- 

 ductive organs of the Cuckoo. This is 

 apparent when we consider facts in 

 relationship of birds, and the proof is 

 conclusive when we realize that 

 throughout the whole of the order — ■ 

 including sub-orders — to which the 

 Cuckoos and their allies belong, no 

 species lays eggs spotted with any 

 reddish color pigments. It would be 

 against a law of nature which created 

 the Cuckoos and sent them forth en- 

 dowed with physical power to exact 

 from nature certain things not in con- 

 flict with other laws of her creation. 

 It would not be entirely impossible to 

 find an abnormally pure white, or 

 nearly pure white egg of a Cuckoo, 

 nor is it an impossible expectancy to 

 find them abnormally deep green, be- 

 cause nature has empowered the bird 

 to draw little or much of these color- 

 ing substances from her store house; 

 but never will a reddish spotted egg be 

 laid by any member of the Cuckoo 

 family, for, throughout the whole or- 

 der of relationship, no species lays 

 normal eggs so spotted. 



Nature may refuse to supply suf- 

 ficient coloring matter to enable a 

 bird's egg producing organs to finish 

 off a normal colored egg, or she may 

 provide a superfluous abundance of 

 the normal coloring pigments to over- 

 color a bird's egg, but she will not give 

 to a bird productive functions foreign 

 to its own kind or those inherited 

 from near relatives. No Oologist will 

 ever find spotted eggs of Woodpeckers, 

 nor will one ever report bluish or 

 greenish tinted eggs of the Humming- 

 birds. Nature forbids it. 



Ornithologists have brought Hawks 

 and Owls in close relationship by 

 grouping them in the Order RAP- 

 TORES, Birds of Prey, but separating 



them finally, l)y a straw, by grouping 

 the former in the Sub-Order FAL- 

 CONES, and the latter in the Sub- 

 Order STRIGES, which is a union of 

 closer relationship than Nature's 

 fundamental laws seem to permit. 

 Delving into fundamental principles 

 for a proper scientific determination 

 of species will not permit a lightly 

 passing over of the make-up of a bird's 

 egg from whence the bird came, and 

 which, in the bird's life, it must re- 

 produce, bearing evidence of heredi- 

 tary elements. Since nature may refuse 

 some normal element of coloring pig- 

 ments to a mated Hawk, that Hawk 

 will respond with an egg which we 

 may consider either normally or ab- 

 normally immaculate; and since na- 

 ture may supply another member of 

 the same species with an over abund- 

 ance of the pigments, we may find an 

 egg very highly colored, even to the 

 point of abnormally so; but nature 

 has ordained that eggs of any species 

 of Owl should not be spotted, hence 

 no Owl will ever lay a spotted egg 

 nor one showing the bluish-green tint 

 within the shell texture as is the case 

 with other birds of prey. 



The reason we sometimes find 

 Robins' eggs abnormally spotted is 

 because the Robin is close in relation- 

 ship with other birds which habitual- 

 ly lay spotted eggs. What is true with 

 the Robin is also true in the case of 

 many other species; but in no wise 

 will an abnormally colored egg of any 

 species be found which carries the 

 elements of that abnormalism outside 

 its own relationship among birds of 

 its order. 



The relationship of birds through 

 facts and proofs supplied by scientific 

 Oologists is a coming important factor 

 in the final means of classification of 

 birds. 



