The Audubon Societies 239 



ground, or dismissed as though of little interest. It is perfectly possible to 

 utilize the natural interest which children express in these wonderful creations 

 of nature toward directing them into channels of further study and therefore 

 greater enrichment of their lives. 



Someone has stated that the greatest interest in connection with birds' 

 eggs is what the egg is in (the nest) and what is in the egg (the developing 

 bird). While these subjects are momentarily less attractive to the child than 

 the delicately colored eggs themselves, the fascination of the eggs can well be 

 utilized to direct the child into making further observations of the nest, the 

 care given to the eggs by the old birds, and of the young which hatch from the 

 eggs. For example: a boy brings a bird's egg to school. It is a blue egg spotted 

 with brown, and the teacher has no idea what bird laid it for he has never seen 

 one like it before. The ordinary teacher makes the boy feel that he has com- 

 mitted a crime and compels him to take the egg immediately back to the nest 

 and the birds that he has robbed, and neither the boy nor the teacher is the 

 richer for the experience. The unusual teacher takes the egg and makes the 

 boy feel that by doing wrong in taking the egg he has likewise robbed himself 

 of the opportunity to watch the birds and suggests that they together try to 

 learn what kind of a bird laid the egg. This leads to a discussion of the eggs 

 of birds with their various colors, sizes, and shapes, and all the children are 

 started in the right direction. They are encouraged to find nests and observe 

 how they are concealed, being very careful not to disarrange the leaves or the 

 grasses about them so as to make them visible to prying eyes. They write 

 descriptions of the nest and how it is concealed, of the eggs and why they are 

 colored as they are, and of the old birds and the care they give the eggs. They 

 learn how long it takes for the eggs to hatch and what the young are like when 

 they hatch. A new field is opened to them. 



Some of the lines of interest in connection with birds' eggs are suggested in 

 the following paragraphs. — A. A. A. 



THE EGGS OF BIRDS 



One who is familiar only with the eggs of domestic fowls has no idea of the 

 variety of the colors, shapes, and sizes of the eggs of our native birds. It is no 

 exaggeration to state that no pigment color exists that is not represented by 

 some tint or shade on the egg of some bird, though, of course, there is Httle of 

 the brilliancy that makes birds' feathers so attractive. Indeed, it is commonly 

 believed that all birds' eggs are protectively colored. Whether this is true or 

 not we shall take occasion to discuss later, but certain it is that from the snowy 

 white eggs of the Woodpeckers or the azure-blue eggs of the Thrushes, there 

 occurs almost every conceivable combination of ground-color and marking 

 until we come to the eggs of the Loons that are often so dark as to appear 

 almost black. The change that has taken place in the development of our 



