LARGE NUMBER OF EGGS. 159 



of laying to commence ; and, therefore, the eggs 

 now laid were a fresh nest, not a continuation of 

 the old. 



Yet there are some accounts given which sur- 

 round this view of the case with unexplained diffi- 

 culties. A correspondent of the Zoologist narrates 

 the following circumstances. A few years since, in 

 a hole in an old ash tree, a single white egg was 

 discovered, without any trace of a nest. This egg 

 was then removed, and in passing the next day the 

 observer had the curiosity to look into the hole, 

 when, to his astonishment, another egg was found. 

 This was also taken, and from that time the tree 

 was daily visited, and each day an egg was removed 

 until the extraordinary number of twenty-two had 

 been taken away. After this not another egg was 

 laid. The parent-bird appears to have been the 

 wryneck. 



In the Magazine of Natural History a somewhat 

 similar account is given by Mr. Salmon, and quoted 

 in Mr. Yarrell's excellent work on British Birds. 

 Wishing to obtain the eggs of the wryneck, a 

 pair, which frequented a garden in a village in 

 Norfolk, for the purpose of incubation, was very 

 narrowly watched. They selected a hole in a 



