THE MARKINGS AND SHAPES OF BIRDS’ EGGS. 121 
things noted as affecting egg coloration; especially 
since, as already mentioned, spottings of the older 
type, that are deep seated in the shell, are not devel- 
oped until we get up to the pebble haunters (or shore 
birds)—a second removal from the ostriches. The 
faint spots and darker stains on the eggs of the Fowl 
groups show evidence of being recent, as noted con- 
cerning ptarmigans. 
Odlogy, however, is not regarded as an exact 
science, and while its indications are sometimes strik- 
ing and interesting, confirming other hints of kin- 
ship, they must usually be taken, on account of the 
many influences mentioned, with considerable caution. 
Birds’ eggs usually differ in shape also, in a gener- 
al way, from those of the reptiles, which last are near- 
ly always globular or ellipsoidal—i. e., elongated with 
both ends alike. But birds’ eggs, with some excep- 
tion in woodpeckers, owls and their near kin, always 
show a true ovoidal shape—i. e., elongated with one 
end smaller or more pointed than the other. The 
word oval comes from the Latin ovwm, an egg, and 
does not mean an equal ended compressed hoop or 
ellipse, as is often popularly thought. It has been 
suggested that this shape is the natural result of the 
upright position of the bird while the egg is forming, 
thus making the lower end the larger, but the owls 
and woodpeckers are the most upright birds in posi- 
tion, and yet they lay the most globular eggs. Another 
theory of shape is that eggs were so shaped among 
low birds (from which they now retain their pe- 
culiarities by inheritance) by their being laid on flat 
