PURPOSE OF LARGE EGGS. 167 



special exception, intended to meet a special cir- 

 cumstance, is to be found. 



The guillemot and the raven, observes Mr. 

 Hewitson, are themselves of about equal size; 

 their eggs vary as ten to one. The snipe and 

 the blackbird differ but slightly in weight ; 

 their eggs differ remarkably. The eggs of the 

 snipe equal in size those of the partridge and the 

 pigeon. 



That there is a cause for these variations in 

 size, no one will question. Birds, in being hatched 

 and emerging from the egg into the world, are in 

 very different states of preparation for their future 

 part in life. Some are soon fit to leave the nest, 

 and to wander out into the world alone ; others 

 require long tending and careful education on the 

 part of the parents, in order to harden their frames, 

 and to fit them for contending alone through life. 

 What a sad condition were that of the newly- 

 hatched guillemot, born on a bare ledge of 

 rock, and imminently in risk of being blown 

 over the edge into the waters beneath, or 

 dashed upon the rocky pinnacles below its birth- 

 place, if it were to spend an infancy as prolonged 

 as that of the young eagle, safe in his home of 



