File:The Oölogist for the student of birds, their nests and eggs (1916) (14565151480).jpg

Identifier: ologistforstud331916latt (find matches)
Title: The Oölogist for the student of birds, their nests and eggs
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Lattin, Frank H
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: Albion, N.Y. : Frank H. Lattin
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
a lace-like deposit of limysubstance. The eggs shown in Pigs.1-9 are also from Mr. Courts and werephotographed by me along with manyothers, which I propose to publish invarious connections. In going over birds eggs, however, Ido meet with some which have theexact form of eggs laid by certain rep-tiles, as for example the globular eggsof certain owls, which bear a close re-semblance to the eggs of marine tur-tles. Moreover, they are both white,the chief difference being that theshell of the turtle is leathery and flex-ible, while that of the egg of the owlis brittle and more or less chalky, asin the case of the eggs of other birds. Mr. Court at one time had the eggof a Barred Owl (Strix varia) in hiscollection, which lacked but very littleof being a perfect sphere. This eggI published a figure of in The Emu awhile ago, which is the ofllcial organof the Royal Australiasian Ornitholo-gists Union of Melbourne, Australia.It was of natural size and a very beau-tiful object. THB OOLOOIST 87
Text Appearing After Image:
b N ■5- ■4-> re 88 THE OOLOGIST It is most interesting that in formand color the eggs of humming-birds(Trochili) very closely resemble thoseof certain small reptiles, and examplesof these are given in Figure 11 of thepresent article. The reptile eggs havebeen kept in alcohol, and show updark in consequence. They also ex-hibit some pitting due to handling,which is unavoidable. When firstlaid, however, they look, in somecases, almost exactly like the eggs ofhumming-birds,which is a very inter-esting fact, when we take into consid-eration the relationship of the twogroups. Figure 11 is also reproduced from aphotograph of mine, the eggs of thehummers belonging to Mr. Court;while I am greatly indebted to Dr.Leonard Stejneger, and his assistant,Mr. Paine, for having selected for methe reptile eggs and for the loan ofthem from the collection of the Divi-sion of Reptiles of the U. S. NationalMuseum. The figures of them showwell the relative size of the eggs ofthe species figured, as we

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