Egg-Shells brought out. 105 



long periods without more than rising from the 

 nest, to stand on the edge of it. Why, in my 

 own case I have had birds that sHpped till the 

 second and even, once, till the third day between 

 the eggs in laying, and the youngest of the brood 

 was nigh three days younger than the next to it, 

 and seven days younger than the eldest of the 

 brood. And in this Hes, indeed, a great aid to 

 the parent birds in the feeding — most anxious time 

 when the young birds scarce can fly steady and 

 yet will leave the nest — in that when the first 

 fledged birds will go out, the younger one or two 

 will still lie contentedly in the nest, dividing the 

 attention needed and lessening the care and labour. 

 But for this arrangement very few birds could survive. 

 1 have over and over again seen two and even three 

 eggs almost or partially covered by the birds only a 

 day or two from the eggs — the warmth of their little 

 bodies no doubt assisting the female greatly in hatch- 

 ing them. Every sitting bird, as the eggs are 

 hatched, brings out in her bill, as with a kind of 

 triumph, the pieces of the egg-shell, which most care- 

 fully she carries to some distance (cunning thing !) 

 before she drops them, as, if she merely threw them 

 out of the nest, they might to some enemies mark 

 clearly her nesting place. My birds uniformly carried 

 the pieces of the shell to the farthest corners of the 

 room and there, after a moment or two, dropped 

 them — never near the cages in which the nests were 

 — and this in the cases of canaries and other birds. 

 It would not do for all the eggs to hatch absolutely at 

 once were it for nothing more than this (to some, 

 perhaps, apparently rather unimportant reason), 



