COMPARATIVE OOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICAN BIROS. 489 

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surroundings, and such hues arc also characteristic of the eggs of the 

 arboreal building Ducks, such as Aix, for example, which lays drab- 

 colored eggs, smooth and ellipsoidal in form. The still more typical 

 tree-Ducks of the genus Dendrocygna may lay whiteeggs ( J), autumnalis). 

 ♦With our Gallina% birds which always build their simple nests 

 upon the ground, we find their large clutches of eggs either white, or 

 else more or less protectively marked, or finally made so by adventi- 

 tious staining (Golinus). These birds, however, as a rule, wear a 

 plumage that is preeminently in harmony with the nest surroundings, 

 and additional protection is undoubtedly afforded from the fact that 

 the incubating birds are all close sitters. There is an interesting 

 exception in this suborder in the case of the Massena Partridge 

 (Gyrtonyx). This curious bird, described by Vigors in 1830, remained 

 comparatively unknown up to the year 1890, at which time not an egg 

 of the species was in the possession of science, and even at this writing 

 it is one of the United States game birds with which we are the least 

 familiar as to its breeding or other habits. Strikingly showy in plum- 

 age it lays a glossy, white egg, but it resorts to breed to the moun- 

 tainous ravines in the western part of country, and this fact, in so far 

 as man is concerned, at least, is the reason its nest has been so rarely 

 discovered (eighth law). .Judging from its other habits it is probably, 

 too, a very close sitter. 



Pigeons (suborder Columbce) lay, as a rule, white eggs, and both 

 sexes incubate in some of the species. Many of them are somber in 

 plumage, and make their nests upon the ground, or very near it. So 

 far as known they lay but two eggs to the set, but many of them breed 

 several times in the season. Those, like Eetopistes, which formerly re- 

 sorted to the forests in numberless hosts for the purpose, have been 

 largely exterminated through man's agency. It would seem that with 

 such a species it mattered not what color their eggs may have assumed, 

 it would have afforded no protection whatever against any class of 

 despoilers. On the other hand, a little dove-like Golumbigallina fre- 

 quently saves its eggs by the habit it has of pitching suddenly off the 

 nest and fluttering about on the ground as if wounded, and leading 

 away the would-be robber of its treasures. Still, this bird, too, will 

 build in the most exposed sites about the habitations of men, where 

 their very gentleness and familiarity often protects them. If many 

 should resort to this latter practice, and men rarely disturbed them 

 when breeding, it would manifestly afford a double protection, for egg- 

 eating mammals and birds, so common in the forests. Mould not likely 

 be found in such localities, and thus their nests be exempt from plunder 

 from such sources. Other birds, as many of the Limicolce, have the 

 trick of playing wounded when their eggs are endangered by man's 

 approach; but it is a question in my mind whether, in many cases, it 

 does not defeat its very object, inasmuch as it often inspires the in 



