OF BIRDS* 
165 
of a clear white, and semi-transparent colour; the wood- 
peckers lay six, the others more. 
The nuthatch lays often in the year, eight at a time, 
white, spotted with brown. The hoopoe lays but two 
cinereous eggs. The creeper lays a great number of 
eggs. The honey-sucker, one of the least and most de- 
fenceless of birds, lays but two eggs: but the extinction 
of the genus is prevented, by a swiftness of flight that 
eludes every pursuit. 
The gallinaceous order, the most useful of any to man- 
kind, lay the most eggs, with the exception of the bus- 
tard, a bird that hangs between the gallinaceous, and the 
waders, which lays only two. The columbine order lays 
but two white eggs: but the domestic kind breeding 
almost every month, increase prodigiously. 
All of the passerine order lay from four to six eggs; 
except the titmouse and the wren, which lay from fifteen 
to twenty, and the goat-sucker, which lays only two. 
The struthious order differ much in the number of eggs; 
the ostrich laying many, as far as fifty; whereas the dodo 
lays but one. 
The cloven footed water fowls, or waders, lay in 
general four eggs; the crane and the Norfolk plover sel- 
dom more than two. All the eggs of the snipe and plover 
genus, are of a dirty white, or olive, spotted with black, 
and scarce to be distinguished in the holes they lay in. 
The land rails (an ambiguous species) lay from fifteen to 
twenty. Of birds with pinnated feet, the coot and grebe 
lay from seven to eight. 
Webb-footed birds differ in the number of their eggs. 
Those which border on the order of waders, lay few 
eggs: the avosettwo: the flamingo three: the albatros, the 
anks, and guillemots lay only one egg a piece: the eggs of 
the two last, are strangely large in proportion to the bulk 
of the body of the bird: they are commonly of a pale 
green colour, spotted and striped so variously, that not 
two are alike, which gives every individual an opportu- 
nity of distinguishing its own on the naked rock, where 
astonishing multitudes assemble. Divers lay only two 
eggs. Terns and gulls three, of a dirty olive, spotted 
