BIRDS, SECOND SERIES***


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NESTS AND EGGS OF FAMILIAR BRITISH BIRDS,

Described and Illustrated; With an Account of the Haunts and Habits
of the Feathered Architects, and Their Times and Modes of Building;

SECOND SERIES.

by

H. G. ADAMS.

Author of "Favorite Song Birds," "Beautiful Butterflies,"
"Humming Birds," &c., &c.

With Eight Coloured Plates of Eggs,
Containing Thirty-Eight Different Species.







London:
Groombridge and Sons, 5, Paternoster Row.
M DCCC LVII.




INTRODUCTION.

WHAT IS AN EGG?


It may at first strike our young readers that this is a question very
easily answered; if they think so, let them try what sort of an answer
they can give to it, and if they break down in the definition, we will
endeavour to help them, as we are told in the old fable, Jupiter did
the waggoner; but it is best for young people to _try_, and, for that
matter, old people too; let them never believe that they _can't_ do a
thing--"where there's a will there's a way." Many a boy that will take
a deal of pains, and incur no inconsiderable risk of life and limb, to
climb up a tree after a bird's nest, finds it too much trouble to read
and learn about the habits of the creature he is thus ready to deprive
of its warm comfortable home and beautiful eggs. He cannot tell you, if
you ask him, of what the nest is composed, nor how, nor when it was
built, much less can he answer the question which we have just put to
our readers,--

WHAT IS AN EGG?

"Well," we hear some one say, "an Egg is a thing of an oval shape,
large or small, white or coloured and speckled, as the case may be; it
has a shell which breaks if you knock it