EGGS. 



Deposition. Almost invariably an egg is laid daily until 

 the clutch is complete. Indeed, such is the great fecundity of 

 the species that it will often continue under exceptional cir- 

 cumstances to deposit an egg daily, with or without an occa- 

 sional da}' of recoupment, until it multiplies the number in a 

 typical set several times over, and that wnthout a radical dimi- 

 nution of the properties of the &gg. Records of even the most 

 prolific of our wild birds laying more than a single egg dailj^ 

 are so few that an instance given by Air. C. H. Morrell, Pitts- 

 field, Maine, is of more than usual interest : On May '21st, '97, 

 at about sunset a cavity in an ash slab was sawed into and the 

 three eggs taken out, examined and returned ; on the 26th it 

 contained nine eggs, which were collected. It looks very much 

 as if two eggs had been deposited in one day and from appear- 

 ances all mu.st have belonged to the same bird. Certainly no 

 egg was overlooked upon the fir.st visit. 



Arrangement. The eggs usually remain in the position of 

 deposition, becoming adjusted to the body during the frequent 

 turning to which they are involuntarily .subjected. When the 

 cavity is small and the clutch large they are sometimes placed 

 in two layers, the fine chips protecting them from injury. The 

 arrangement of a heavily incubated set containing the unusual 

 number of thirteen eggs taken by Mr. H. J. Flanagan in 

 Providence Co., R. I., on May -'JOth, '*.>S, was peculiar, if not 

 unique. The entrance, eighteen inches above the nest, was 

 about three and one- half feet above the ground, in an apple 

 tree, and had been previously broken into .so that the eggs 

 were in plain .sight. The trunk had been hollowed out to a 

 diameter of ten inches or so, and the eggs laid in one row of 

 five and two rows of four each. Two eggs which contained 

 dead embryos appeared of a dark brown color. One was .sit- 

 uated almost in the middle of the central row, and the other 

 in the center of one of the outer rows, alxnit one egg .separat- 

 ino- them. 



