446 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



shells are left in the nests. The young are able to take care of 

 themselves no sooner than is the case with the Plovers, but the 

 egg-shells, in their hidden position, present no dangers, and 

 consequently they are left. It is very often not till autumn frosts 

 have knocked the leaves off the hedgerows that we become aware 

 of the position of some of the Partridges' nests of the previous 

 spring, and this by seeing a mass of broken shells in the long- 

 deserted nest. Supposing that Partridges' eggs were protectively 

 coloured, and were laid on the bare ground in the open like those 

 of a Plover, and by this protective coloration escaped danger till 

 the time of hatching, it is impossible to believe that the broken 

 shells would be left lying about on the ground till the last of the 

 fifteen or sixteen eggs had hatched. 



The young of the Charadriidce, equally with the game birds, are 

 able to follow the parents almost immediately they are hatched. 

 But it is this " almost" which would be the fatal point to ground 

 breeders with open nests, were the egg-shells left lying in the 

 nest ; and this the birds know, and carry off every fragment of 

 shell to a safe distance. 



Many may think the habit trivial and of no vital importance 

 to the bird. Yet it has been acquired in the struggle for 

 existence, like any other beneficial factor, through sheer necessity 

 — by death and extermination where it was not followed. 



Many birds which breed in covered sites, as the Starling and 

 Tits, remove the egg-shells from the nests, no doubt ; but this 

 they do for an entirely different reason, the comfort and cleanliness 

 of their homes, just as they remove the excreta for this purpose. 

 I once had the misfortune to break into a nest of the Great Tit, 

 Parus major, deep down in a willow stump, containing eight 

 young ones and four rotten eggs. The beautifully felted nest did 

 not contain the smallest fragment of egg-shell, and was absolutely 

 free from any trace of foecal matter, though it must have been an 

 immense labour for the old birds to have kept their home in such 

 a perfectly sanitary condition. But this habit has been brought 

 about by necessity, and not through love of cleanliness — not till 

 many generations of juvenile Tits had been carried off, perhaps, 

 by avian forms of typhoid and other enteric fevers, and the race 

 was growing smaller and smaller, did they hold their sanitary 

 congress, and adopt the excellent laws which now govern the 

 genus Farm. 



