THE OOLOGIST. 



203 



On June 27th, while up near the 

 place where I found the nest in 1902 

 and '03, I saw another shrike and af- 

 ter a short search found its nest, just 

 deserted by young, placed in an apple 

 tree about twenty feet up. I counted 

 five young and two old birds in various 

 parts of the orchard in which the nest 

 was situated. The pair will undoubt- 

 edly nest there in 1905. The birds 

 would Swing on dead primrose stems, 

 making a queer noise, probably shriek- 

 ing with joy. Thus, I know of two 

 pair of White-rump shrikes that have 

 nested in this county (Fulton) and 

 doubtless more have nested as my ob- 

 servations are quite restricted. Sum- 

 ming up the matter, I come to the 

 conclusion that the bird is gradually 

 becoming more abundant in eastern 

 New York and in a few years will un- 

 doubtably become one of the common- 

 est of our land birds. Before closing 

 I wish to thank Mr. Benjamin Hoag 

 for identifying properly, these birds 

 from a description which I sent him. 

 Chas. p. Alexander, 

 Gloversville, New York. 



One Egg Withig Another. 



A QUESTION. 



To the Editor of the Oologist. 



Dear Sir:— A few days ago a hen's 

 egg was shown me which, from out- 

 side general appearance, was the same 

 as any other hen's egg with the excep- 

 tion that the shell was a trifle larger 

 than common but when broken open 

 it was found to contain a peculiar 

 lump enclosed in the white of the egg. 

 This lump was tbe shape of a bean 

 and about an inch long of a dirty yel- 

 low color. Nothing unusual about 

 the yoke or the other parts of the white 

 of this egg. The lump mentioned 

 above proved to be another egg with a 

 shell on it Shell was very thick, very 

 near 1 millimeter in thickness, was 



nearer the structure of a snake's egg 

 than it was of a hen's egg, as it was 

 very pliable and could be pressed out 

 of shape only to return to its natural 

 shape again, yolk was the same or 

 nearly the same as the other yolk with 

 this exception, it was a deeper yellow 

 color. It was not, to my thinking, a 

 reptile's egg nor a hen's egg. What 

 was it? How did it get there, and 

 when? Egg was from the grocery 

 store so can't tell what kind of a hen 

 laid it. 



Last spring a White Rock Chicken 

 laid a double egg. The shell I reserv- 

 ed for my collection. It is consider- 

 able thicker in structure than custom- 

 ary with hen's eggs, shape of egg is 

 the same as an alligator's eggs. Egg 

 was four inches long and about 1% 

 inch in diameter. Egg shell contain- 

 ed two complete eggs. Why did this 

 happen? 



Thinking that the foregoing would 

 would be of interest to the readers of 

 the Oologist and would also give them 

 a chance to speculate on the formation 

 of two interesting abnormalities, and 

 hoping to learn from your excellent 

 publication more about the two eggs, or 

 I might say four, I am Yours, 



Edmund Everett Hobbs, 

 Binghamton, N. Y. 



Answer— Double eggs like the se- 

 cond instance Mr. Hobbs gives are 

 common with fowls in captivity, espe- 

 cially hens and ducks. This is very 

 rare with wild birds. In the first case 

 the yolk of the first egg was evidently 

 incased by the first membraneous lay- 

 er of shell with the white or albumen 

 lacking and, being too small to cause 

 the hen to expell it, became a part of 

 and was enclosed in the shell of a se- 

 cond egg. 



This is the first instance of this kind 

 to come to the editor's notice. 



Editor. 



