194 THE VICTORIAN" NATURALIST. 



nest-robbers is not, I think, borne out by the facts. For 

 instance, Mr. Campbell, singularly enough, relates an instance 

 in which the eggs of the coach-whip bird disappeared from a 

 nest he had found building, when he was convinced that no 

 human being had forestalled him, and another where the 

 bright flesh-coloured eggs of the wattle-bird {Anihocoera carun- 

 ciilata) were rudely broken. The fracture, he says, bore distinct 

 impressions of the bill of a larger bird, probably that of a crow, 

 as they are notorious nest-robbers, so that it will be seen, as, I 

 think might be expected (for, as I understand protective 

 colouration in insects, it is that the bright colour resembles 

 that of other inedible species) that bright colours have no 

 deterrent effect, at least, on some of the birds' enemies ; pro- 

 bably there is no such effect on any of them. 



What could be more beautiful colouring for an ^g% than deep 

 flesh colour or azure blue, or the beautiful painted markings on 

 the Q%g of the spotted bower-bird (which is, nevertheless, quite 

 exposed in an open nest), or the pale bluish tint of the herons } 

 Or, again, what, for an o,^^ that is to be viewed in the dark, 

 could be a more appropriate colour than the pure immaculate 

 and glossy white of so many of the birds first enumerated .? So 

 that, taking all the above facts into consideration, I think it will 

 be seen that natural selection has only operated to any marked 

 extent on those eggs which are exposed on the bare ground or 

 rocks, and that birds have, from sheer love of the beautiful, 

 retained bright colours in their eggs, as they have in their own 

 plumage, even though it may expose them to greater dangers 

 than would be met by less bright and more sombre hues. If 

 this be so, we would expect to find sexual selections at work 

 -counteracting the effect which would otherwise be produced by 

 natural selection, and it is somewhat difficult to perceive where 

 the opening presents itself through which such operation may 

 take place. 



My only answer to this question — and I merely offer it as 

 a suggestion which may or may not be accepted as the solution 

 of the problem — is that it is quite possible, if not even probable, 

 that the nest-building and egg-laying proclivities of individuals, 

 especially such as construct open and exposed nests, may be 

 known amongst the other members of the same species in the 

 locality, and that thus the laying of highly-coloured eggs might 

 possibly affect the choice by the male of a mate in the same 

 way that his gay-coloured plumage influences the female in her 

 choice of a husband ; thus perpetuating amongst the species 

 the laying of highly-coloured eggs. 



In support of the above view, I may refer to Mr. Romanes' 

 work,*' in which he describes the closeness with which the 



* Animal Intelligence, p. 323. (Ed. 18S2 ) 



