39 
The Thrushes 
eggs will hatch,—and accident (how much is discovered by 
accident!) showed that double-shelled eggs will hatch too. 
Two boys found a fantail’s nest, and removed the eggs, which 
all appeared the same, intending to take them home. One was 
accidentally broken,—and it contained a partly-developed chick 
and another egg. The inner egg was small, but the shell was 
as thick as the outer shell. They tried to blow it, but it broke, 
and inside they found another partly-developed chick. As the 
Maori would say, "Accident is a personage of great 
importance. ’ ’ 
Yet another instance, this time to show the apparent sociability 
of birds. In 1923 a boy brought me a thrush’s double-nest 
from Lower Hutt, Wellington. It was no ordinary double- 
nest. After building it the thrushes discovered they did not 
want one of the nests; it may be that one of the females, 
supposing there had been two, had been killed, so there was 
no need for the nest. It was well built, however, and rather 
than let it remain empty it was sub-let to a hedge-sparrow, 
which lined the completed thrush’s nest and laid its eggs. 
Both birds laid, so both birds must have sat amicably side by 
side. The arrow, in the illustration, shows a division between 
the hedge-sparrow’s nest and the thrush’s. 
The two New Zealand species of thrush are :— 
Turnagra tanagra North Island thrush piopio 
Turnagra crassirostris South Island thrush piopio 
The North Island thrush. —Above, olive-brown; throat white, 
breast olivaceous-grey, abdomen yellowish-white; tail rufous; 
eye yellow; bill and feet dark brown. Total length 11 in.; 
wing, from flexure, 5^ in.; tail, 5 in. The sexes are alike. The 
young birds are marked with rufous on the head, and have a 
band of the same colour on the breast. 
The South Island thrush. —Above, olive-brown, below oliva¬ 
ceous, streaked with white, tinged with yellow on the abdomen; 
tail and some of the wing-covets rufous; eye yellow; bill and 
feet dark brown. Total length 11 in.; wing, from flexure, 5 in.; 
tail 5 in. The sexes are alike. The young are rufous on head 
and throat. 
