220 A HISTORY OF BIRDS 



their ancient enemy, otiiers appear to set all danger at defiance 

 to save these precious pledges of joys to come. Thus while 

 some species will leave their eggs, when necessity demands, 

 fully exposed, trusting apparently to their protective coloration 

 when this exists, others carefully conceal them, covering them, 

 as in the case of the Grebes, with decaying vegetable matter, 

 or burying them in the sand, as with the little Egyptian Plover. 

 In this latter instance it does not appear -to be certainly known 

 whether the eggs are buried in the hot sand to save, or at least 

 reduce the work of incubation, or whether they are normally 

 incubated, and covered only when danger compels the sitting 

 bird to seek safety in flight. But among the Ducks this regard 

 appears to reach its maximum, inasmuch as the mother plucks 

 the down from her breast to form both a lining for the nest 

 and a covering for the eggs during her enforced absences. 



The Eider-duck, if suddenly alarmed when sitting, will 

 instantly leave her eggs, but before doing so discharges over 

 them a quantity of fluid excrement having a peculiarly offen- 

 sive smell, which probably contributes in no small degree to 

 disgust intending robbers. Though this discharge is probably 

 involuntary, it forms nevertheless a device which must be of no 

 little service in the preservation of the species. 



The Osprey again {Pandion halicetus) appears to regard 

 her eggs with great solicitude, inasmuch as she has apparently 

 a habit of leaving them exposed for a few hours daily to the 

 sun while she basks therein on a neighbouring branch, ever and 

 anon rousing herself to take a plunge into the lake below, rising 

 therefrom to shake her dripping plumage over the Ospreys 

 that are to be. 



Here then we have the rudiments of that instinct for the 

 preservation of the eggs of which so many wonderful instances 

 have been recorded. 



Thus, for example, a case is on record of a pair of Merlins 

 which transported their eggs from a nest in a tree to a bank 

 forty yards distant where they improvised a nest of leaves for 

 their reception ; and this because the sitting bird had been 

 repeatedly shot at while on the nest — to the shame of the 

 shooter, be it said. It must, however, be recorded to the credit 

 of those who instigated this attempted murder, that the birds 

 were allowed to hatch off their young in safety. No less re- 



