128 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



cowardly among the tribe, have perhaps the most 

 conspicuous eggs of any. The magpie is a strong 

 bird, its eggs well concealed, and the nest fortified ; 

 but the colour of this egg is dull, like those of the 

 rook, woodcock, &c. Two very similar eggs are 

 those of the redstart and hedge-sparrow : the former 

 builds in holes, the latter does not. The cuckoo very 

 commonly selects the nest of the hedge-sparrow, 

 depositing a spotted brown egg among bright blue 

 ones. After this, if we admit that the brightest white 

 eggs are to be found with birds whose nests are the 

 most concealed, as the king-fisher, wryneck, wren, 

 tit, sparrow, and especially the bank-swallow, may 

 we not rather infer that, the interior of these nests 

 being peculiarly dark, the bright white colour is con- 

 venient to the bird to enable her to distinguish one 

 egg from another? At all events, we must regard 

 M. Gloger's hypothesis as ingenious, rather than 

 supported by facts*/' 



M. Gloger has been unfortunate in his example of 

 the king-fisher ; for though this bird hides her shining 

 white eggs in a hole, yet that will not conceal them 

 from the piercing eyes of her chief enemy the water- 

 rat, which, like all burrowing animals (the mole not 

 excepted), can see with the least possible light. He 

 seems also to have overlooked the obvious fact, that 

 many birds, which lay bright-coloured eggs, make 

 open nests ; the song-thrush, for example, whose 

 clear blue eggs, with a few black blotches, are far 

 from being concealed by the plastering of cow- 

 dung upon which they are deposited. A similar 

 remark applies to the stone-chat ( Saxicota rubicola, 

 BECHSTEIN). The green-finch (Fringilla Moris, 

 TEMMINCK) again, which builds an open nest of 

 green moss lined with horse-hair, black or white as it 

 Can be had, lays clear white eggs with red spots, 

 * Brande's Journal for December, 1829, p. 441, note. 



