Colours of Eggs 



which are laid in shingle or on the bare ground, 

 as, for example, the eggs of the ring-plover and 

 the lap- wing. 1 He maintains that the variously 

 coloured and speckled eggs that are laid in cup- 

 shaped nests are not protectively coloured at all ; 

 he declares that they are usually very conspicuous 

 when in the nest, and, moreover, it would be futile 

 for them to be cryptically coloured, for a bird or 

 lizard that habitually sucks eggs will examine 

 carefully the interior of each nest it discovers. 



Needless to say, this view does not appeal to 

 the so-called Neo- Darwinians. Wallace writes, 

 on page 215 of Darwinism-. "The beautiful 

 blue or greenish eggs of the hedge-sparrow, the 

 song-thrush, the blackbird, and the lesser redpole 

 seem at first sight especially calculated to attract 

 attention, but it is very doubtful whether they 

 are really so conspicuous when seen at a little 

 distance among their usual surroundings. For 

 the nests of these birds are either in evergreen, 

 or holly, or ivy, or surrounded by the delicate 

 green tints of early spring vegetation, and may 

 thus harmonise very well with the colours around 

 them. The great majority of the eggs of our 

 smaller birds are so spotted or streaked with 

 brown or black on variously tinted grounds that, 



1 Even these eggs, closely though they resemble in colouring 

 the shingle, etc., on which they are laid, are discovered and 

 eaten by gulls, as Mr A. J. R. Roberts points out in The Bird 

 Book. 



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