birds' eggs 73 



kept her place. She had found a rent in the 

 matted carpet of dry leaves and pine needles 

 that covered the ground, and into this had 

 insinuated her nest, the leaves and needles 

 forming a canopy above it, sloping to the south 

 and west, the source of the more frequent sum- 

 mer rains. 



At about the same time one finds the nest 

 above described, if he were to explore the 

 woods very thoroughly, he might chance upon 

 two curious eggs lying upon the leaves as if 

 dropped there by chance. They are elliptical, 

 both ends of a size, about an inch and a quarter 

 long, of a creamy white spotted with lavender. 

 These are the eggs of the whippoorwill, a bird 

 that has absolutely no architectural instincts 

 or gifts. Perhaps its wide, awkward mouth and 

 short beak are ill-adapted to carrying nest ma- 

 terials. It is awkward upon the ground and 

 awkward upon the tree, being unable to perch 

 upon a limb, except lengthwise of it. 



The song and game birds lay pointed eggs, 

 but the night birds lay round or elliptical eggs. 



The egg collector sometimes stimulates a 

 bird to lay an unusual number of eggs. A 

 youth, whose truthfulness I do not doubt, told 

 me he once induced a highhole to lay twenty- 

 nine eggs, by robbing her of an egg each day. 

 The eggs became smaller and smaller, till the 

 twenty-ninth one was only the size of a chip- 

 pie's egg. At this point the bird gave up the 

 contest. 



There is a last egg of summer as well as a 



