BIRDS' EGGS 



A LTHOUGH the eggs of birds are by no means very 

 /~~\ typical eggs, they are always those which the 

 word first suggests, and they perhaps deserve the first 

 place in our consideration, for they are interesting above 

 all other eggs, as the enthusiasm of the " oologists " 

 amply testifies. " In enthusiastic zeal for the pro- 

 secution of their favouritive researches," Prof. Alfred 

 Newton writes, " they have never yielded to, if they 

 have not surpassed, any other class of naturalists. If a 

 storm-swept island, only to be reached at the risk of life, 

 heid out the hope of some oological novelty, there was the 

 egg-collector. Did another treasure demand his traversing 

 a burning desert or sojourning for several winters within 

 the wildest wastes of the Arctic Circle, he endured the 

 necessary hardships to accomplish his end, and the posses- 

 sion to him of an empty shell of carbonate of lime, stained 

 or not (as the case might be) by a secretion of the villous 

 membrane of the parent's uterus, was to him sufficient 

 reward/' Eggs can be studied scientifically like other 

 things, and Professor Newton goes the length of saying 

 that hardly any branch of the practical study of Natural 

 History brings the inquirer so closely into contact with many 

 of its secrets. It is true that collecting birds' eggs may be 

 no better, and is often much worse, than collecting postage 

 stamps ; but if one ponders over the eggs and their problems, 

 there is abundant opportunity for scientific work, and there 



have been some notable results. Thus we must credit 



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