76 
N£STS AND EGGS OF 
they have experienced so much real happiness, for the sunny groves of 
Mexico and Peru, or the breezy forests of their West Indian home. 
The eggs of this species vary from an inch to .90 in length, and 
have an average width of .65. The ground-color passes from a well- 
marked shade of greenish-hlue to a dull white with scarcely the faintest 
tinge of blue. In some the spots differ in size, are more or less confluent, 
and chiefly of a reddish-brown color intermingled with a few others of an 
obscure purple. As a rule, there is a notable resemblance to each other, 
in the eggs of the same nest-complement, except where, by reason of 
pillage, or some adventitious circumstance, the female is called upon to 
deposit, after she has already furnished the necessary number, in order to 
compensate for those that have been taken or destroyed. It may he the 
earliest-laid eggs that have escaped the avaricious oologist. In that event, 
the additional ones must necessarily he lighter in colors, and contrast very 
strongly with those which remain. Locality has doubtless much to do 
with color-variations, southern specimens being more sharply deflned than 
those from colder latitudes. 
