BIRDS' EGGS AND NESTS.
THE Eggs of Birds are variously tinted and mottled, and hence they become objects of interest to the collector. In this diversity of colour nature has, doubtless, some final object in view; and though not in every instance, yet in many, we can certainly see a design in the adaptation of the colours to the purpose of concealment, according to the habits of the various classes of Birds. Thus, as a general rule, the Eggs of Birds which have their nests in dark holes, or which construct nests that almost completely exclude the light, are white; as is also the case with those Birds that constantly sit on their Eggs, or leave them only for a short time during the night. Eggs of a light blue or light green tint will also be found in nests that are otherwise well concealed; while, on the other hand, a great proportion of those nests that are in exposed situations have Eggs varying in tints and spots in a remarkable degree, corresponding with the colours of external objects in their immediate neighbourhood. Thus, a dull green colour is common in most gallinaceous Birds that form their nests in grass, and in aquatic Birds among green hedges; a bright green colour is prevalent among Birds that nestle among trees and bushes; and a brown mottled colour is found in those Eggs that are deposited among furze, heath, shingle, and grey rocks and stones.
Birds'-nesting, we need hardly remark, is a favourite pursuit of boyhood; but, in some cases, its attractions have induced young persons to take up more important branches of natural history, or the collection, systematic arrangement, and comparison of Birds' Eggs, which is, in scientific study, termed Oology; and as the study of Birds cannot be considered complete until they are known in every stage, it forms a branch of Ornithology. In this case Birds'-nesting has an useful object; but many persons are content to acquire collections of Eggs without troubling themselves about the Birds which have laid them.
The late Mr. John Wolley, M.A., was one of the leading authorities upon the subject of European Ornithology, and was one of a number of University men, who, about twelve years ago, established the ornithological journal called "The Ibis," and who visited far-distant and unexplored regions, where they might hope to discover strange Birds and unknown Eggs. For several years Algiers and Tunis were their favourite resorts, and the meeting-places of many of our rarer Birds were hunted up in these countries, even so far as the Desert of the Great Sahara. Others preferred the New World as the scene of their labours, and collected long series of specimens in the highland of Guatemala, and the tropical forests of Belize. Mr. Wolley, however, confined his attention principally to the northern parts of Europe—that region being the breeding-quarters of a large number of Birds which are only known in this country as winter visitants. In order to be at his collecting-station at Muonioniska, on the frontier of Finnish Lapland, at the earliest commencement of the breeding-season, Mr. Wolley frequently passed the whole winter in that remote region. But the rigour of the climate under the Arctic Circle contributed to bring on a malady which terminated fatally in November, 1859.
Upon the decease of Mr. Wolley, his large collection of Birds' Eggs, in accordance with his last wishes, became the property of his friend, Mr. Alfred Newton, who is publishing a Catalogue of Mr. Wolley's Egg Cabinet, with notes from the deceased naturalist's journals. The first part contains the Eggs of Birds of Prey (Accipitres), recognisable at once by their strongly-hooked bill, formed to assist them in tearing their prey, and their large feet and sharpened claws, which aid them to grasp it. They are divisible into two very distinct groups—the diurnal Birds of Prey, consisting of the Hawks, Vultures, and Eagles; and the nocturnal Birds of Prey, or Owls. In the latter the Eggs are invariably colourless; in the former they are often strongly marked, and present some of the most beautiful objects in the whole series of Birds' Eggs.
In the most recently published list of European birds fifty-two species of birds of prey are given as occurring more or less frequently within the limits of our continent. Of the three generally-recognised species of European Vultures two are well represented, as regards their eggs, in the Wolleyan series. A few years ago the nesting of all these birds was utterly unknown to naturalists, and it was mainly through the exertions of Mr. Wolley and his friends that specimens first reached our collectors' cabinets. Here were found both the Egyptian Vulture and the Griffon breeding abundantly in the Eastern Atlas in 1857; and the eyries of these birds have since been visited by other collectors in the same country. The Eggs of the former of these Vultures are remarkable for their deep and rich coloration. The productions of the Griffon are not nearly so handsome, and are occasionally altogether destitute of markings. Of the Eagles of Europe the series of Eggs is very full, especially of the two well-known British species—the Golden Eagle and Sea Eagle. The Golden or Mountain Eagle is even now-a-days much more common in the remote parts of the British islands than is usually supposed to be the case. In 1852 Mr. Wolley was acquainted with five nests of this bird in various parts of Scotland, and there were undoubtedly at least as many more of which he did not learn the particulars. The eyrie is usually placed in some mountainous district, on the ledge of some "warm-looking" rock, well clothed with vegetation, and often by no means wild or exposed. Not unfrequently, under proper guidance, one can walk into the nest almost without climbing. Mr. Newton gives a very entertaining account of the taking of a pair of eggs from a nest in Argyllshire in 1861, where this seems to have been the case. In the whole ascent there was only one "ticklish place," where it was necessary to go sideways on a narrow ledge round some rocks. The Sea Eagle, on the other hand, generally breeds on the high cliffs upon the coast, often selecting the most inaccessible position for its eyrie. Sometimes, however, it will choose an island in the middle of an inland loch, and in such case places its nest upon the ground or in a tree.
Mr. Wolley's well-written notes of his adventures in quest of both these Eagles, as also those relating to the other rapacious birds, will be read with much interest; as will also the details concerning the nesting-habits of many of the rarer species of European birds, several of which, such as the Rough-legged Buzzard and the Lapp Owl, were first tracked to their breeding-quarters in the remotest wilds of Scandinavia by this indefatigable naturalist. [10]
Of large Eggs we are most familiar with those of the Ostrich, of which Mr. Burchell, when in Africa, found twenty-five Eggs in a hollow scratched in the sand, six feet in diameter, surrounded by a trench, but without grass, leaves, or sticks, as in the nests of other birds. In the trench were nine more Eggs, intended, as the Hottentots observed, as the first food of the twenty-five young Ostriches. Between sixty and seventy Eggs have been found in one nest; each is equal to twenty-four Eggs of the domestic hen, and holds five pints and a quarter of liquid. The shells are dirty white. The Hottentots string them together as belts, or garlands, and they are frequently mounted as cups. One Ostrich Egg is a sufficient meal for three persons. The Egg is cooked over the fire without either pot or water, the shell answering the purpose of the first, and the liquid nature of its contents that of the other.
Less familiar to the reader are the gigantic Eggs of the Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. One of these Eggs contains the substance of 140 hens' Eggs. Mr. Geoffroy St. Hilaire describes some portions of an Egg of the Epyornis which show the Egg to have been of such a size as to be capable of containing about ten English quarts; that in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes can only contain 8-3/4 quarts. Mr. Strickland, in some notices of the Dodo and its kindred, published in 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous Egg which held "thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid." The natives stated that the Egg was found in the jungle, and "that such Eggs were very, very rarely met with."