48 WOODLAND CREATURES 



them! Well, to cut the story short, on going 

 one morning to the silver birch to make my usual 

 inspection I was horrified to find four white eggs 

 lying smashed on the ground at the foot of the 

 tree. Those wretched starlings had taken the 

 opportunity to tumble the eggs out and take 

 possession of the hole. I wish I could add that 

 some misfortune befell the starlings, but, as a 

 matter of fact, they reared a large and happy 

 family in the nest that they had obtained in such 

 an unprincipled manner. 



All our woodpeckers lay pure white eggs, with 

 the faintest flush of pink, from the orange yolk, 

 showing through the thin shell. White eggs is 

 a characteristic that the woodpeckers share with 

 most other birds that nest in holes and dark 

 places. Colour in eggs is usually associated with 

 exposed nesting sites, and apparently serves to 

 camouflage the dainty morsels from the hungry 

 gaze of the many creatures that are always ready 

 to raid a nest. In a dark hole colour is useless, 

 and it is a significant fact that the eggs of the 

 majority of birds that nest in holes are white. 

 Whether the ancestral woodpeckers laid coloured 

 eggs, and the coloration has in the course of 

 time been lost through the absence of selection 

 since they took to nesting in the dark, or whether 

 the whiteness is a survival from the dim and distant 

 times when the ancestral lizard-bird laid a skinny 

 reptilian egg, is too speculative a matter for me 

 to venture an opinion upon. The woodpeckers 

 have another characteristic of those species that 



