Colours of Eggs 
which are laid in shingle or on the bare ground, 
as, for example, the eggs of the ring-plover and 
the lap-wing.!| He maintains that the variously 
coloured and speckled eggs that are laid in cup- 
shaped nests are not protectively coloured at all ; 
he declares that they are usually very conspicuous 
when in the nest, and, moreover, it would be futile 
for them to be cryptically coloured, for a bird or 
lizard that habitually sucks eggs will examine 
carefully the interior of each nest it discovers. 
Needless to say, this view does not appeal to 
the so-called Neo-Darwinians. Wallace writes, 
on page 215 of Darwinism: “The beautiful 
blue or greenish eggs of the hedge-sparrow, the 
song-thrush, the blackbird, and the lesser redpole 
seem at first sight especially calculated to attract 
attention, but it is very doubtful whether they 
are really so conspicuous when seen at a little 
distance among their usual surroundings. For 
the nests of these birds are either in evergreen, 
or holly, or ivy, or surrounded by the delicate 
green tints of early spring vegetation, and may 
thus harmonise very well with the colours around 
them. The great majority of the eggs of our 
smaller birds are so spotted or streaked with 
brown or black on variously tinted grounds that, 
1 Even these eggs, closely though they resemble in colouring 
the shingle, etc., on which they are laid, are discovered and 
eaten by gulls, as Mr A. J. R. Roberts points out in Zhe Bird 
Book. 
207 
