birds' eggs 65 



are more or less tinted and marked. The eggs of 

 the hummingbird are white, but the diminutiveness 

 of their receptacle is a sufficient concealment. An- 

 other white egg is that of the kingfisher, deposited 

 upon fish-bones at the end of a hole in the bank 

 eight or nine feet long. The bank swallow also lays 

 white eggs, as does the chimney swallow, the white- 

 bellied swallow, and the purple martin. The eggs 

 of the barn swallow and cliff swallow are more or 

 less speckled. In England the kingfisher (smaller 

 and much more brilliantly colored than ours), wood- 

 peckers, the bank swallow, the swift, the wryneck 

 (related to the woodpecker), and the dipper also 

 lay white eggs. 



A marked exception to the above rule is furnished 

 by the eggs of the Baltimore oriole, perhaps the most 

 fantastically marked of all our birds' eggs. One 

 would hardly expect a plainly marked egg in such 

 a high-swung, elaborately woven, deeply pouched, 

 aristocratic nest. The threads and strings and horse- 

 hairs with which the structure is sewed and bound 

 and stayed are copied in the curious lines and mark- 

 ings of the treasures it holds. After the oriole is 

 through with its nest, it is sometimes taken posses- 

 sion of by the house wren in which to rear its second 

 brood. The long, graceful cavity, with its fine car- 

 pet of hair, is filled with coarse twigs, as if one were 

 to build a log hut in a palace, and the rusty- colored 

 eggs of the little busybody deposited there. The 

 wren would perhaps stick to its bundle of small 

 fagots in the box or pump tree, and rear its second 



