204 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



I first discovered it contained only one egg the one 

 with the large blotches upon it in the illustration of a 

 clutch of Tree Sparrow's eggs on the preceding page. 

 I visited the nest again exactly a week later, and 

 was surprised to find that it had six more eggs in it, 

 all very similar to each other, but differing widely 

 from the first one laid. My observations proved 

 that in this case, at any rate, the egg, unlike the 

 rest of those in the clutch in the character of its 

 markings, was laid first, and that the species can 

 upon occasion lay at least one more egg than it 

 has been given credit for even by our greatest 

 authorities on British ornithology, who place the 

 outside limit of a clutch of Tree Sparrow's eggs at 

 six in number. 



It is surprising how much is expected of a man 

 who takes an interest in birds and their eggs by 

 people who know little or nothing of the subject 

 themselves. They will ask him to identify all sorts 

 of eggs with certainty without a scrap of evidence 

 on their part saving the empty shell, and even go 

 so far as to paint white eggs with all kinds of 

 colours. A wag once sent me a small domestic 

 fowl's egg, very cleverly marked with by no means 

 unreasonable colours, and a request that I should 

 identify it for him. I promptly replied that it was 

 a common Humbug's egg from Bamboozle-' em-land. 



Although birds' eggs, as a rule, follow pretty 

 closely the common type of their species in regard 

 to coloration and markings, extraordinary depar- 

 tures are sometimes met with, and I believe that 

 such variations are generally due to the indifferent 

 health of their layers. I have once or twice met 

 with common Wrens' eggs without markings of any 

 sort, and some years ago took a clutch of pure 

 white eggs from a House Sparrow's nest. I have 



