c8 Allen on the Nesting of the Black Duck. ^ j" n 



Three of the eggs that were uncracked were placed in the cool 

 water to delay hatching and carried back to the lighthouse after 

 I had finished watching the other eggs hatch. One egg hatched 

 on the way and I found the bird dead in my pocket, a rather dis- 

 gusting object, wet and naked, while the others were alive and 

 nearly free from the shells. In the sun they soon became covered 

 with down like the others, but the dead one refused to blossom out 

 under the same conditions. Drying it with alcohol and rubbing 

 with a soft brush caused these hair-like pointed casings to split 

 and come away in segments, giving as perfect plumage as any. 

 Mv two pets refused to eat and when I tried to feed them with 

 milk gruel and egg from a glass dropper they fought against 

 the procedure with all their puny might so piteously that I was 

 forced to give it up and carry them back to the nest where I left 

 them with the old bird near at hand. Next day I found them 

 there, one dead and the other dying. I was forced to be content 

 with them as specimens. Since then I have carefully watched 

 the hatching of many different kinds of birds, both domestic and 

 wild, and have found their different methods intensely interesting. 

 In all cases nature provides practically the same hair-like cylin- 

 ders as a water-proof protection to prevent the down from get- 

 ting wet and matted by the slimy liquids within the egg. In 

 some the process of drying, with the bursting of these sheaths 

 and blossoming out of the bulky down tufts, is very rapid indeed, 

 while others require many hours. Unless thus protected the 

 down of all birds would become a very sorry matted mass before 

 they left the shell, and infinitely more uncomfortable to. the bird 

 as this albuminous mass dried and hardened upon the delicate 

 skin. It could never become the same light, fluffy, protective 

 covering to the young bird. 



It is an interesting study to note just where and how each dif- 

 ferent bird cuts through the shell in gaining its liberty, whether 

 around the centre of the egg, or near the base or point, and 

 whether by successive punctures toward the right or left, or more 

 or less irregularly. Each seems to have, within certain limits, the 

 head and armed beak approximately in the same relative posi- 

 tion as others of its kind, and it escapes in much the same way. 

 A Heron's egg is broken at a very different place and in a very 

 different manner from that of a Duck, a Quail, or a Snipe. The 

 shape of the egg has likewise much to do with it. I should like 



