9© KINSHIP OF BIRDS, AS SHOVVI^ BY EGGS. 



HINTS AT THE KINSHIP AND HISTORY OF BIRDS, 

 AS SHOWN BY THEIR EGGS. 



BY JAMES NEWTON BASKETT, MEXICO, MO. 



In an attempt at an artificial analysis of the nests and 

 eggs of North American birds, recently undertaken and not 

 yet completed, I have been frequently impressed with re- 

 semblances between the eggs of groups often far removed 

 from each other. Of course many of these resemblances 

 were permanent, and, in all probability, purely accidental ; 

 but those sudden variations which are so frequently found in 

 the eggs of one species or individual were suggestive. They 

 seemed to hint at a struggle in the egg itself to typify an 

 ancestry or show a progression, and to shadow a com- 

 plexity of origin and tendency, not always shown by the 

 bird itself. 



I had begun to make a few notes on the subject ; and 

 when the Executive Committee of this Congress asked me 

 to read a paper on a topic of my own choosing it occurred 

 to me that matter enough might be on hand to justify 

 expanding. I had no literature bearing directly on the sub- 

 ject — in fact I was ignorant of its bibliography ; and when 

 circumstances developed which deprived me of the time to 

 complete my own notes, I felt indeed in a dilemma. 



I had noted that our common Grackles, or Crow Black- 

 birds {Qiiiscalus quisculd), laid two very distinct types of 

 eggs, and that while one of them was clearly the egg of a 

 near relative of the Orioles {Icterince), the other just as 

 clearly indicated a corvine kinship. When we recall how 



