BIRDS. 517 



of India and Africa, is protected during incubation with 

 extraordinary care, for she plasters up with her own excre- 

 ment the orifice of tlie hole in which she sits on her eggs, 

 leaving only a small orifice through which the male feeds 

 her; she is thus kept a close prisoner during the whole 

 period of incubation;* yet female horn-bills are not more 

 conspicuously colored than many other birds of equal size 

 which build open nests. It is a more serious objection to 

 Mr. Wallace's view, as is admitted by him, that in some few 

 gi'oups the males are brilliantly colored and the females 

 obscure, and yet the latter hatch their eggs in domed nests. 

 This is the case with the Grallinae of Australia, the superb 

 warblers (Maluridae) of the same country, the sun-birds 

 (Xectarinise), and with several of the Australian honey- 

 suckers or Meliphagidae. f 



If we look to tile birds of England we shall see that 

 there is no close and general relation between the colors of 

 tiie female and the nature of the nest which is constructed. 

 About forty of our British birds (excluding those of 

 large size which could defend themselves) build in holes in 

 banks, rocks or trees or construct domed nests. If we take 

 the colors of the female goldfinch, bullfinch or blackbird 

 as a standard of the degree of conspicuousness, which is 

 not highly dangerous to the sitting female, then out of the 

 above forty birds the females of only twelve can be consid- 

 ered as conspicuous to a dangerous degree, the remaining 

 twenty - eight being inconspicuous. J Nor is there any 



Mr. C. Home, "Proc. Zoolog. Soc.," 1869, p. 243. 



f On the nidification and colors of these latter species, see Gould's 

 " Hand-book," etc., vol. i, pp. 504, 527. 



X I have consulted, on this subject, Macgillivray's " British Birds," 

 and though doubts may be entertained in some cases in regard to the 

 degree of concealment of the nest and to the degree of conspicuous- 

 ness of the female, yet the following birds, which all lay their eggs 

 in holes or in domed nests, can hardly be considered, by the above 

 standard, as conspicuous: Passer, 2 species; Sturnus, of which the 

 female is considerably less brilliant than the male; Cinclus; Motal- 

 lica boarula (?); Erithacus (?): Fruticola, 2 sp. : Saxicola; Ruticilla, 2 

 sp.; Sylvia, 3 sp.; Parus, 3 sp. ; Mecistura; Anorthura; Certhia; 

 Sitta; Yunx; Muscicapa, 2sp. ; Hirundo, 3 sp. ; and Cypselus. The 

 females of the following 12 birds may be considered as conspicuous 

 according to the same standard, viz.. Pastor, Motacilla alba, Parus 

 major and P. caeruleus, Upupa, Picus, 4 sp., Coracias, Alcedo and 

 Merops. 



