242 
NATURE 
— [Dee. 30, 1869 
Science, No. 1, pp. 32-33, and No. 4, pp. 231-2-3, published 
in the present year,—it will, I think, be admitted that Mr. Jeffreys 
can hardly claim originality in his statement. : : 
But to prove that Mr. Jeffreys was well acquainted with my 
previously published observations on the subject, I invite attention 
“to two distinct statements of his which appeared in his Reports on 
Dredging, and were published in the Avsals and Magazine of 
Natural History, on the respective dates given below :— 
Annals, Noy.-1866, p. 391. | 
“Dr. G. C. Wallich, in his admi- | 
rable and philosophic treatise, with 
which all marine zoologists and geo- | 
logists are, or ought to be, familiar, 
believed,” &c. &c. ‘* As to the accu- | 
racy of his statements, 20 reasonable | 
doubt can be entertained.” 
Annals, Oct. 1868, p. 305- 
“‘Coccospheres and Foraminifera 
cover the bed of the Atlantic at 
enormous depths. ‘The occurrence, 
therefore, of such organisms on the 
floor of the ocean, at great depths, 
does not prove that they ever lived. 
there. J should rather be inclined 
| to éclieve that they dropped to the 
| bottom when dead, or after having 
passed through the stomachs of other 
| animals which had fed on them.” 
It thus becomes manifest that Mr. Jeffreys had studied my 
writings, but that the opinions entertained by him in 1866 became 
revoked in 1868; whilst those held by him in 1868 were in turn 
superseded by views formed and published in 1869! This 
circumstance is the more significant, inasmuch as Dr. Carpenter, 
in his ‘Official Report on Dredging,” for 1868 (p. 181), actually 
singles out the opinion published by Mr. Jeffreys, as above, in the 
autumn of the same year, as an authoritative illustration of the want 
of credence which my discoveries had met with! 
With regard to Mr. Jeffreys’ new division of oceanic animals 
into zcophagons and sarcophagons, I have nothing to urge beyond 
my avowed inability to discern any physiological difference 
between creatures that are zoophagous and those that are 
sarcophagous. It only remains for me to express my belief that, 
up to the present period, I have stood alone in maintaining, 
against Ehrenberg and others, that plant-life, even of the lowest 
types, becomes extinct at depths exceeding four or five hundred 
fathoms; and in endeavouring, by a series of observed facts, to 
prove that the nutrition of the Foraminifera and certain other 
oceanic Rhizopods is effected by a special vital process, which 
enables them to eliminate and apply to the formation and 
sustenance of their body and shell-substance, through their 
surfaces only, the materials which exist in the medium in which 
they reside. 
Kensington, Dec. 21 G, C. WALLICH 
Colouring of the Cuckow’s Egg 
As I see Professor Newton has, in his very interesting paper on 
Dr. Baldamus’ theory of the colour of Cuckoo’s eggs, noticed my 
“stigmatising” the Doctor’s theory as “wild,” inmy “‘ Birds of 
Somerset,” will you be kind enough to allow me space for a few 
lines on the subject? Although it is with great diffidence that I 
venture to differ from Professor Newton, I still cannot help con- 
sidering Dr. Baldamus’ theory as ‘‘ wild,” not perhaps as it 
appears under the manipulation of Professor Newton, for he 
seems to me to have pruned and pared it down so nicely that 
there is but little of the original left ; and I think he would not 
much differ from me in my opinion as to the wildness of the 
theory, if he had to accept all the allegations in Dr. Baldamus’ 
paper published in Maamannia:* For instance, compare the 
following passage in Professor Newton’s paper in No. III. 
of NATURE with some passages from Dr. Baldamus’ paper :— 
“* Waving said thus much, and believing as I do the Doctor to 
be partly justified in the carefully-worded enunciation of what he 
calls ‘a law of nature,’ I must now declare that it is only 
‘approximately,’ and by no means universally true, that the 
Cuckow’s egg is coloured like those of the victims of her impo- 
sition. Increase as we may by renewed observations the number 
of cases which bear in favour of his theory, yet, as almost every 
bird’s-nesting boy knows, the instances in, which we. cannot, 
even by dint of straining our fancy, see resemblances where none 
exist, are still so numerous as to preclude me from believing in 
the generality of the practice imputed to the Cuckow. In proof 
of this I have only to mention the many eggs of that bird which 
are yearly found in nests of the Hedge-Sparvow in this country, 
without ever bearing the faintest similarity to its well-known green- 
blue eggs. One may grant that an ordinary English Cuckow’s 
egg will pass well enough, in the eyes of the dupe, for 
_* Where I_have quoted from this paper, I have quoted from the transla- 
tion by the Rey. A. C. Smith, published in the Zoodogist for 1868, which 
professes to be an accurate translation, and there seems to be no possible 
reason to doubt its being so. 
that of a Titlark, a Pied Wagtail, or a Reed Wren, which 
according to my experience are the most common foster-parents | 
of the Cuckow in this country ; and indeed one may say, per- 
haps, that such an egg is a compromise between the three, or a 
resultant, perhaps, of the three opposing forces ; but any likeness 
between the Hedge-Sparrows egg and the Cuckow's so often found - 
alongside of it, or in tts place, 7s not to be traced by the most fertile - 
imagination. NVe must keep, therefore, strictly to the letter of the 
law laid down by Dr. Baldamus, and the practice imputed to the 
Cuckow is not universally, but only approximately true.” This - 
certainly is very different from ‘Dr. Baldamus’ own statement : 
—‘‘If Mr. Braune, the forester of Griezland, had not cut this 
large Willow Wren’s (.Shzfpolais) egg (as it seems) out of the 
ovary of the Cuckoo, which was killed as she was flying out of 
the Willow Wren’s nest ; if Count Rodern, of Breslau, was not a 
reliable authority that this apparent Redstart’s egg was taken cut 
of the nest of the Redstart (Azticilla phenicurus) ; if M. Halricht 
had not taken this large Tree Pipit’s egg out of the nest of a 
Tree Pipit (Avthus arboreus) ; if 1 myself had not taken out of 
the nests of the Red-backed Shrike (Zamius collurio) this red- 
dish and this green-greyish peculiarly marked Cuckoo’s egg, one 
might indeed entertain doubts whether this variously-coloured 
collection—these green eggs, with and without markings ; these 
on white, grey, green, greenish, brownish, yellowish, reddish, 
and brown-reddish ground ; these grey, green, olive green, ash 
grey, yellow brown, yellow red, wine red, brown red, dark 
brown and black ; these spotted, streaked, speckled, grained and 
marbled eggs could one and all be the eggs of our Cuckoo! 
And yet this is indeed the fact!” How different this from the 
much more cautious and limited statement of Professor Newton, 
first quoted, which would entirely sweep away some of these 
varieties, especially those resembling the eggs of the Redstart or 
the Hedge-Sparrow, for the eggs of these two species do not differ 
much from each other, and what might be said of the eggs of the’ 
one would apply equally to those of the other ; yet these are two 
of Dr. Baldamus’ selected species, for, a little further on, he gives . 
a list of the various species from the nests of which Cuckoo’s 
eggs have been taken resembling those of the foster-parent. 
Of the eggs of the Redstart he says :—‘‘ These four specimens, 
which were found in the nests of Auticilla phanicurus, are - 
all of a light-green ground colour ; two of them have the larger 
and more or less brownish spots, which on one of them form a 
zone; the third has similar markings, but only sparingly scat- 
tered over the whole surface, whilst the fourth is without any 
marking at all—herein it is identical with one in the possession 
of Dr. Dehne, which is wi/formly light-greenish blue, without 
any markings whatsoever.” 
Of the single specimen of the egg resembling that of the Hedge- 
Sparrow, No. 15 in his list. he says :—‘‘ One of the most interest- 
ing of the Cuckoo’s eggs is a beautiful blue-green one, which was 
taken out of the nest of Accentor modularis, without any 
markings, and which even to the shell, the grain, and the size 
(bis auf Shale, Korn, und Grosse) is like a very dark egg of the 
Hedge-Sparrow.” On reading this quotation from the statement 
of the facts on which his theory is founded by Dr. Baldamus in 
the paper in Vaumanzia, and comparing it with Professor 
Newton's paper above quoted, we cannot help seeing that there 
is a decided issue of fact between them, especially as to the eggs 
of Accentor modularis. 
The conclusion which Dr. Baldamus draws from the facts 
stated by him is that Nature, by means of such arrangements, has © 
ensured and facilitated the preservation of a species otherwise 
much exposed to danger, and that she has attained this object 
by investing every hen Cuckoo with the faculty of laying eggs 
coloured exactly like the eggs of the bird of whose nest she 
prefers to make use, according to the locality. Now if this were 
really the case, and it were really true that this colouring of the 
eggs were essential for the preservation of the species, would 
it not be just one of those laws of Nature which we should 
expect to find universal, or so nearly so that there would be 
but very few exceptions? But according to Dr, Baldamus 
himself the exceptions are numerous, and Professor Newton 
would make them still more numerous, and would no doubt be 
quite right in doing so. How, then, do the eggs in the excep- 
tional cases prosper? Does the Hedge-Sparrow or the Redstart 
throw the egg of the Cuckoo out of its nest because it does not — 
resemble its own? or do the birds to whose tender mercies the 
Cuckoo, according to Dr, Baldamus himself, is occasionally 
obliged to entrust its eggs when it cannot find a fitting nest in 
which to place them, do so? This does not appear to be at all - 
